In January 2012 I became the first British Foreign Secretary since Anthony Eden in 1955 to set foot on the soil of Burma, or Myanmar as it is now officially called. It was a visit with a surreal beginning, since it started in the new capital, Naypyidaw, freshly constructed by the military junta, initially in secret, and with buildings and roads out of all proportion to the few people who lived there.
On the six-lane highway to the brand new parliament building I saw a solitary Burmese citizen pedalling a bike. And, in contrast to the poverty of most of the nation, the legislators I met - still mainly puppets of the military - sat in vast and palatial rooms. The whole city seemed like a monument to dictatorship and unaccountable government. Yet Myanmar was a country that was beginning to change, and very much for the better.
Within hours I was spending time with a host foreign minister keen to improve relations with the West, and with President Thein Sein, encouraging him to make the proposed transition to democracy as thoroughgoing as possible. Since they were eager to have EU sanctions against them lifted, it was possible to push them to go a bit farther than they would have done of their own accord. These men were the classic apparatchiks of a military regime: stolid, cautious and unexciting.
No greater contrast could have been possible than with the woman I then met in Rangoon - their long-time opponent, Aung San Suu Kyi, or Daw Suu as she is addressed. To meet her was to encounter a beacon of inspiration and a model of political staying power, principle and example. Two decades of isolation or house arrest had left her determination to bring freedom to the people of her country undimmed. Holder of the Nobel Peace Prize and a global icon for human rights campaigners, she possessed immense moral authority in the eyes of most of the world.
I spent a whole evening talking to her at the British residence, and most of the next day doing so again in her house, and saw she had the firmness and discipline to put her ideals into practice. Today, five years on, Daw Suu is the effective leader of her country, although crucially without direct control of the military, who continue to hold power over defence, home and border affairs, and to appoint a quarter of the parliament. The constitution even allows the generals to re-impose their rule if the country is on the verge of disorder. Her writ does not run through the whole of government, and her hold on power is far from total.
What then, should we expect of her, now the army she does not command has launched a brutal campaign against the Rohingya population — Muslim people who live in a border region, some of whom carried out attacks on the army on August 25? It is possible to make the argument that we should cut her some slack, and, were this a continuation of the long-running hostility between the Rohingya and the majority Buddhist population, with low-level incidents, those of us who have met and admired her would be tempted to do so. This is certainly a conflict with fault and atrocities on both sides.
Having come to elected office after so long, it is understandable that Daw Suu does not wish to jeopardise what she has achieved. Furthermore, there is little sympathy for the Rohingya among the majority of Burmese, who often regard them as having no right to live where they do — although I gave their ministers copies of historical records showing that Rohingya lived in that area long before Britain drew borders and established empire there.
All of us who have served in government know that ideals have to be tempered by reality, and that politics is a constant effort to choose the lesser of evils. Isn’t it preferable for this indomitable leader, having arrived in power — albeit incomplete — to keep doing her best for the majority rather than enter a futile confrontation with the army over a conflict that is not her fault? I join all those who have come to the sad conclusion that, no, it isn’t.
The action against the Rohingya in the past fortnight appears to be one of unlimited violence against the civilian population. The accounts emerging from the area in question, Rakhine State, involve the torching of villages and appalling atrocities of rape and murder. Some 300,000 refugees have now fled into Bangladesh.
The stories of machete-armed attacks on defenceless people while nearby police do nothing to help are reminiscent of what happened in Rwanda, and the UN’s description of what is happening as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing” recalls the fate of Bosnia. Such crimes, on such a scale, go far beyond anything to which a leader of moral standing can turn a blind eye, no matter what the political complications. There is no excuse, defence or acceptable explanation for mass murder.
So far, Daw Suu has complained of media misinformation about the crisis, and said her government should not be expected to have solved in 18 months a dispute that has been going on for decades. Misinformation there may well be, although much of it seems to be on the part of a government trying to make out that Rohingya have burnt their own villages. And no one expects an instant solution to this intractable conflict. But the world expects a moral lead from a leader of her stature, and the situation demands it.
So what should she do? First, demand an end to the campaign of violence, as well as the laying of land mines on the border to keep displaced people permanently away from their homes. Second, ask for an investigation into crimes on all sides, with international cooperation. Third, explain to the Burmese people, as a leader sometimes must, that this conflict cannot be solved through attempts to annihilate or drive out an entire minority population. Fourth, face the domestic consequences of taking such a stand.
Yes, much is at stake, with the risk of losing popularity or power. But the alternative — of a leader rightly honoured for integrity and principle losing her moral authority — is incalculably worse: for her country, for her and for the upholding of basic values of humanity and civilisation. Come on, Aung San Suu Kyi. Be the great leader we always knew.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2017
William Hague is the former UK foreign secretary and a former leader of the Conservative Party
