Aung San Suu Kyi: The making of a genocidal leader

Or, did it develop after she returned to Myanmar in 1988, and was exposed to the rampant undercurrent of anti-Muslim bias that infects the country? Ever the pragmatic politician, she has used Muslim allies when it served her, including lawyer U Ko Ni, who devised the means by which she became the country’s titular head. But her true feelings were evident after his assassination, by regime agents, when she refused to honour his contribution to her career and even to attend his funeral.
Still, being a bigot doesn’t make you an open advocate for extermination.
Many additional things have happened in the past five years, which, coupled with her advancing age and increasing inflexibility and intolerance, have turned Suu Kyi into nothing less than a genocidal leader.
The Rohingya people have suffered mass repression many times, notoriously when dictator Ne Win attacked in 1978, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to Bangladesh. The latest “ethnic cleansing” began in June 2012, when false reports claimed three Rohingya men had raped a Rakhine woman. This immediately led to riots, the first contemporary Rohingya and more generally anti-Muslim pogrom, which spread around the country.
There were as many as 2,000 deaths in June 2012 alone, when 90,000 Rohingya refugees also fled to Bangladesh. Anti-Rohingya violence continued with new major outbreaks in October (the second pogrom) and February 2013 (the third pogrom). The atrocities continued into 2014, when in addition to the new refugees in Bangladesh there were 140,000 internally displaced Rohingya, who were subsequently imprisoned in concentration camps. During this two-year period a massive anti-Muslim mob was established, centred on the 969 movement and later the Buddhist clergy-led racists Ma Ba Tha. 
This was Suu Kyi’s first major ethical failure. Rather than risk her popularity with her core supporters, Burman Buddhists, she was silent about the purge. 
In October 2016, a small self-defence force, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), decided enough was enough and attacked some police posts. This precipitated another major spasm of violence, but this time perpetrated for the most part by soldiers and police rather than public mobs. Another 75,000 Rohingya refugees fled to Bangladesh, reporting horrors that UN investigators later described as crimes against humanity.
Unbelievably, she rejected and even ridiculed the cries of Rohingya girls who had watched their families be slaughtered and then been gang-raped.
Still, while now openly a racist herself, it was not yet evident that she too desired the annihilation of the Rohingya people.
This has changed. The regime crcakdown against Rohingya villages escalated again to the point where by August this year there were multiple raids every day, across Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung townships. ARSA fought back, and the Myanmar Army went berserk, bringing in helicopters and two infantry divisions to conduct a new campaign of mass killings and village burnings. The genocide was restarted and there are now at least another 160,000 displaced villagers, 87,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh in the past week, the UN reports.
This time Suu Kyi ended whatever reserve she might have had. Her office labelled ARSA terrorists, NGO workers in Rakhine state terrorists, and by default the entire Rohingya people terrorists. She is now leading their dehumanisation, which is the principal step in creating the justification for genocide. 
For the mob, including Suu Kyi, the objective is simply eradication. But for the dictatorship, it is more. The Rohingya genocide is also a diversion from the regime’s manifold other criminal acts, and a defence against the formation of a new and real pro-democracy movement. Further, if successful it will accomplish an unprecedented land theft: all of northern Rakhine state. What we are witnessing is the implementation of a carefully laid plan.
Roland Watson
(www.dictatorwatch.org)