By Yun Byung-se
All eyes are now on Myanmar following the country's Feb. 1 military coup and the arbitrary detention of members of the government, including State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and others. The three-finger salute raised by Myanmar's U.N. envoy Kyaw Moe Tun at the U.N. General Assembly on Feb. 26 eloquently epitomized the scope and level of the ongoing pro-democracy movement in Myanmar, known locally as the "Spring Revolution."
The salute has become a symbol of opposition to the military; and the live coverage of the suppression of peaceful demonstrators through social media has succeeded in raising awareness in the international community.
A tipping point came when the military junta started to use violence, including lethal weapons, against civilians, resulting in large-scale bloodshed. The international community has responded swiftly this time. Global institutions and notable people, including the U.N. secretary-general, U.N. Security Council, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the World Bank, as well as regional bodies such as the European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and other like-minded groups, responded in their own way, ranging from condemnatory statements and resolutions to targeted sanctions, arms embargoes and the suspension of aid and loans.
Many governments, including the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom and Canada imposed individual sanctions targeting military leaders and their business networks. In an unusual move, the Korean government, the National Assembly, and both ruling and opposition parties also joined this chorus of condemnation and sanctions.
Even the chairman of Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was on board with a joint statement of 12 JCS chiefs, including those from the U.S., Japan and Australia, condemning the junta's use of lethal force against civilians. This echoes the sentiment shared by the majority of the international community.
Nevertheless, there is still a big divide over how to deal with the Myanmar crisis. One side favors much tougher punitive measures, advocated by many democracies across the world and former global leaders. The other is in favor of non-interference in domestic affairs or constructive engagement with the junta, advocated by China, Russia and some ASEAN countries.
The former camp was well represented by the U.N. Human Rights Council when it adopted by consensus on March 24 the toughest-ever resolution on Myanmar in recent times. It contained strong condemnations on the junta's use of force and very sensitive accountability aspects regarding violations of international human rights norms and standards.
What deserves our special attention is its reference to the "R2P" (Responsibility to Protect) concept, recalling the authority of the Security Council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC). ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda used to describe the ICC as "the legal arm of R2P." In a follow-up, the chairman of the Global Leadership Foundation comprised of 45 former leaders, former South Africa President F.W. de Klerk, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres imploring him to convene a U.N. Security Council session on this issue.
The letter also called on the Security Council to invoke its "R2P" principle, agreed in 2005 to safeguard populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in their own countries, and act as a coalition to bring the killing in Myanmar to an end. In the same vein, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also defined the bloody suppression as a "crime against humanity" at the virtual U.N. Security Council meeting held on April 19.
All these developments will serve as a shot in the arm for those people across Myanmar who carried placards with "We need R2P" to call on the international community to not just condemn what is happening in their country, but to act on it.
The second approach can be well explained by the dissociation of China and Russia from the above Human Rights Council resolution. However, they did not go so far as to oppose the U.N. Security Council chair's statement on March 10, unanimously condemning the military's violence against protesters and calling for the immediate release of all those detained arbitrarily.
The Myanmar crisis goes beyond the dimensions of human rights and democracy. It is a litmus test of the "ASEAN way" of constructive engagement as well as its charter that upholds human rights, democracy and rule of law as one key purpose of the group. The five-point consensus adopted at the ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on April 24 is a step in the right direction, but still there is a long way to go.
China's close relations with both the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi make its calculus complex. Meanwhile, it is an embarrassment and challenge to the Biden administration who under President Barack Obama decided to normalize ties with Myanmar, hailing Myanmar's shaky road to semi-democracy as one of its major foreign policy accomplishments. The ever-intensifying Sino-American conflict complicates international efforts to stand united. India also has a stake in Myanmar.
Under these circumstances, the road to a return to democracy in Myanmar, even partial and incomplete, seems to be bumpy and arduous. Many Myanmar watchers recognize that the transition to democracy, beginning 2015 when the National League for Democracy took power, was incomplete under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But, from the perspective of citizens, Myanmar in 2021 was a more open, free, and business-savvy society than it was back in 2011 or 2015.
Myanmar's experiment with partial democracy allowed the genie to escape from the bottle, and the country's citizens have no intention of putting it back. As Koreans traveled this road some decades ago, we know and feel what this means in our minds and hearts. The international community should do what it can to demand a return to the lawfully elected civilian government.
Yun Byung-se is former foreign minister of South Korea. He is now a board member of the Korea Peace Foundation and is a member of several ex-global leaders' forums and task forces, including the Astana Forum and its Consultative Council as well as the Task Force on U.S. Allies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
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The salute has become a symbol of opposition to the military; and the live coverage of the suppression of peaceful demonstrators through social media has succeeded in raising awareness in the international community.
A tipping point came when the military junta started to use violence, including lethal weapons, against civilians, resulting in large-scale bloodshed. The international community has responded swiftly this time. Global institutions and notable people, including the U.N. secretary-general, U.N. Security Council, the U.N. Human Rights Council, the World Bank, as well as regional bodies such as the European Union (EU), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and other like-minded groups, responded in their own way, ranging from condemnatory statements and resolutions to targeted sanctions, arms embargoes and the suspension of aid and loans.
Many governments, including the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom and Canada imposed individual sanctions targeting military leaders and their business networks. In an unusual move, the Korean government, the National Assembly, and both ruling and opposition parties also joined this chorus of condemnation and sanctions.
Even the chairman of Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) was on board with a joint statement of 12 JCS chiefs, including those from the U.S., Japan and Australia, condemning the junta's use of lethal force against civilians. This echoes the sentiment shared by the majority of the international community.
Nevertheless, there is still a big divide over how to deal with the Myanmar crisis. One side favors much tougher punitive measures, advocated by many democracies across the world and former global leaders. The other is in favor of non-interference in domestic affairs or constructive engagement with the junta, advocated by China, Russia and some ASEAN countries.
The former camp was well represented by the U.N. Human Rights Council when it adopted by consensus on March 24 the toughest-ever resolution on Myanmar in recent times. It contained strong condemnations on the junta's use of force and very sensitive accountability aspects regarding violations of international human rights norms and standards.
What deserves our special attention is its reference to the "R2P" (Responsibility to Protect) concept, recalling the authority of the Security Council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC). ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda used to describe the ICC as "the legal arm of R2P." In a follow-up, the chairman of the Global Leadership Foundation comprised of 45 former leaders, former South Africa President F.W. de Klerk, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres imploring him to convene a U.N. Security Council session on this issue.
The letter also called on the Security Council to invoke its "R2P" principle, agreed in 2005 to safeguard populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in their own countries, and act as a coalition to bring the killing in Myanmar to an end. In the same vein, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also defined the bloody suppression as a "crime against humanity" at the virtual U.N. Security Council meeting held on April 19.
All these developments will serve as a shot in the arm for those people across Myanmar who carried placards with "We need R2P" to call on the international community to not just condemn what is happening in their country, but to act on it.
The second approach can be well explained by the dissociation of China and Russia from the above Human Rights Council resolution. However, they did not go so far as to oppose the U.N. Security Council chair's statement on March 10, unanimously condemning the military's violence against protesters and calling for the immediate release of all those detained arbitrarily.
The Myanmar crisis goes beyond the dimensions of human rights and democracy. It is a litmus test of the "ASEAN way" of constructive engagement as well as its charter that upholds human rights, democracy and rule of law as one key purpose of the group. The five-point consensus adopted at the ASEAN Leaders' Meeting on April 24 is a step in the right direction, but still there is a long way to go.
China's close relations with both the junta and Aung San Suu Kyi make its calculus complex. Meanwhile, it is an embarrassment and challenge to the Biden administration who under President Barack Obama decided to normalize ties with Myanmar, hailing Myanmar's shaky road to semi-democracy as one of its major foreign policy accomplishments. The ever-intensifying Sino-American conflict complicates international efforts to stand united. India also has a stake in Myanmar.
Under these circumstances, the road to a return to democracy in Myanmar, even partial and incomplete, seems to be bumpy and arduous. Many Myanmar watchers recognize that the transition to democracy, beginning 2015 when the National League for Democracy took power, was incomplete under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But, from the perspective of citizens, Myanmar in 2021 was a more open, free, and business-savvy society than it was back in 2011 or 2015.
Myanmar's experiment with partial democracy allowed the genie to escape from the bottle, and the country's citizens have no intention of putting it back. As Koreans traveled this road some decades ago, we know and feel what this means in our minds and hearts. The international community should do what it can to demand a return to the lawfully elected civilian government.
Yun Byung-se is former foreign minister of South Korea. He is now a board member of the Korea Peace Foundation and is a member of several ex-global leaders' forums and task forces, including the Astana Forum and its Consultative Council as well as the Task Force on U.S. Allies and Nuclear Weapons Proliferation sponsored by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.
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