Aung San Suu Kyi: Right Activist, Politician or Military Genocide Cover Up Failed in all

The disappearance of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who represented two entirely different archetypes to two different audiences, domestic and foreign, proved her inability to do what so many expected: form a political equipoise with the military with whom she shared power.

By allowing negotiations with General Min Aung Hlaing to wither, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi had lost the military’s ear. And by defending the generals in their ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims, she lost the trust of an international community that had championed her for decades.

“Aung San Suu Kyi rebuffed international critics by claiming she was not a human-rights activist but rather a politician. But the sad part is she hasn’t been very good at either,” said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch. “She failed a great moral test by covering up the military’s atrocities against the Rohingya. But the détente with the military never materialized, and her landslide election victory is now undone by a coup.”

The speed with which Myanmar’s democratic era unraveled was stunning, even for a country that had suffered nearly a half century of direct military rule and had spun with coup rumors for days.

Source: NYT