Aung San Suu Kyi and ethnic cleansing: the dark side of ‘Myanmar way’ democracy

ABSTRACT After more than half a century of military rule in Myanmar, a democratic transition started in 2011. General Thein Sein established a civilian government from 2011 to 2016, and then in 2016 Aung San Suu Kyi, the daughter of the ‘father of the nation’, came to power. But Suu Kyi’s government had to share power with the military, as the constitution provided them vital privileges. Subsequently, following brutal actions against the Rohingya ethnoreligious group during Suu Kyi’s tenure, the international community accused her government of doing nothing to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide. This article examines why Aung San Suu Kyi, as leader of a fledgling democracy, failed to protect the Rohingya from ethnic cleansing. The arguments centre on the countrywide anti-Rohingya sentiment, Myanmar’s unstable democracy, Suu Kyi’s election process, the power imbalance between military and civilian governments and Suu Kyi’s policy tilt towards the military, and how these factors contributed to ethnic cleansing and genocide. Michael Mann’s theory on the ‘dark side’ of democracy, here applied to Myanmar’s democracy under Aung San Suu Kyi, examines how it connects with repression, ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Rohingya minority.