Sunday 10 September 2017

Aung San Suu Kyi , Rakhine and the Geopolitical Struggle over Myanmar.

As thousands of Muslim Rohingya have fled west from Myanmar across the border into Bangladesh amist accusations of 'ethnic cleansing' or even a 'genocide', Aung San Suu Kyi, the leading advocate of democracy, human rights and Nobel Prize winner has now been firmly condemned for her silence on her General's actions.

Suu Kyi might do well do to heed her own advice “Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it.” However, it is unfortunately a feature of many democratic transitions from dictatorship in multi-ethnic states to have the outbreak of ethnic-sectarian separatism and violence.Yugoslavia after 1991 was one example.

The other was the 'Arab Spring' of 2011 which rapidly became hijacked as part of an Iranian-Saudi and Qatari proxy war. The Myanmar military would appear to be persecuting the Rohingya Muslim and pursuing 'ethnic cleansing' but the brutal reality is a nasty civil war in the province going on has developed since October 2016.

Moreover, the Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) which is launching an insurgency is a fanatical newly branded jihadi group backed by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for geopolitical advantage. The new Myanmar-China gas pipeline runs right through coastal Rakhine and the Saudi would like to extend control over the province.

Riyadh wants to pose to pose as the champion of global Sunni jihad and block off Iranian gas and oil exports through to China which will, in return, supply much need electricity to Myanmar. Riyadh has been bankrolling intolerant Wahhabi Islam throughout neighbouring Bangladesh in order to extend its influence.

Though Harakah al-Yakin (HaY) was mostly concerned with local grievances, it converted to become the ARSA the better to draw in funds from the Gulf States, in the same way the Sunni jihadists in the FSA attempted after the Syrian uprising was hijacked for similar geostrategic reasons and to sabotage rival projects.

The silence of Suu Kyi could well reflect knowledge that Myanmar is becoming the site of a jihad backed by external powers and that the insurgency-terrorist threat is real. That could offset the fact Myanmar military is cracking down disproportionately and driving out Rohingya Muslims in revenge for ARSA attacks.

Weapons have reached ARSA through southern Bangladesh into Myanmar via the Bangladeshi border and Bay of Bengal. As with the KLA in the conflict with the Serbian-Yugoslav forces, much funding comes from the Rohingya diaspora community. It's becoming a regional  Islamic jihad cheerled by the Saudis.

This meddling in Myanmar's internal affairs started in 2012, just as it did in Syria and Yemen after 2011. Riyadh started to provide funds for the Rohingya and, even prior to that in 2009, the previous king offered sanctuary to 250,000 Rohingya of whom 3,000 were amnestied from its prisons and sent back to Myanmar.

Saudi Arabia is doing what it usually does in trying to radicalise Muslims through Wahhabi teachings and using their terrorist threat as power political leverage. Riyadh would be able to use its defence of the Rohingya to upgrade its status as a defender of Muslim human rights and get the West bound closer to it in its rivalry with China.

One reason for this alignment is the Myanmar-China pipeline. For it allows less energy to go between Africa and the Middle East by tanker via the Malacca Straits which is patrolled off Malaysia by the US navy and could be used to choke China's energy hungry economy of oil should both Great Powers collide over geopolitical interests.

The US has only expressed 'concern' over events in Rakhine. It would not want to drive Myanmar and Thailand further towards China's sphere of interest. Both states have become more closely aligned since 2012 and the Thai coup. Both have trying to balance off Western interests, not least in Myanmar's oil and gas, China.

As for Aung San Suu Kyi, she would risk being deposed if she attacked the still powerful generals who could be sure of total and powerful Chinese support in order to preserve and protect the Myanmar stretch of its huge new "One Belt, One Road" initiative, one that challenges US hegemony in Asia.

The West too is ready to criticise her now as an irrelevant and tarnished asset in the New Great Game. Her previous champion Timothy Garton Ash has, since 2012, little or nothing to write in public about her as a beacon of human rights and freedom while US officials are probably wondering how to balance their interests best.

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