Locsin on Myanmar coup: The West ‘destroyed’ Aung San Suu Kyi

Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr. on Thursday placed the blame on Western countries for the military-led coup in Myanmar that deposed and detained democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

During a briefing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Locsin bewailed the West’s criticism of Suu Kyi, whose star dimmed after she defended the military's ongoing crackdown on Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority.

Locsin said that with this repudiation, Suu Kyi lost her only leverage over the military junta: the adoration of the international community.

“I pour my scorn on the Western world. They destroyed Aung San Suu Kyi. The Rohingya is not a Myanmar problem. It is a British problem. It is a British legacy which made Rohingya a sub-class, sub-human. They brought them to Burma. They never gave them citizenship,” Locsin said.

“She had to balance the tolerance of the military to her democratic maneuverings and the racial hatred against the Rohingya. She only had the adoration of the world against the army. When the junta realized she had no name, no reputation, then it is time to get rid of her. They have gone 20 steps backward from democracy, ” Locsin added.

Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, spent 15 years under house arrest on the orders of the military junta. She was released in 2010, won a seat in parliament in 2012, and in 2016 assumed the post of State Counsellor, though still under a junta-drafted Constitution.

Suu Kyi, however, was widely criticized for defending the junta against genocide charges before the International Court of Justice in The Hague in December 2019, considering that the United Nations investigators already said at that time the Myanmar military committed mass killings and gang rapes of Muslim Rohingya with genocidal intent and as such should be prosecuted.

Despite such criticisms over the Rohingya crisis, Suu Kyi and her party the NLD remained popular in Myanmar—a popularity that translated to a more resounding win in the November 2020 polls, winning 396 out of 476 parliament seats, giving them a fresh five-year mandate.

The election results prompted the junta to claim that the polls were marred by fraud—an allegation that was dismissed by both local and international election observers.

Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and other pro-democracy figures were eventually rounded up and detained by the junta on the morning of February 2—the same day that the parliament was supposed to open session.

'My leadership'

Locsin declared the Western government’s criticisms of Suu Kyi-led government’s mishandling of the Rohingya crisis “sissy” and ill-motivated, saying the Western governments is after Myanmar’s vast oil and gas resources.

“She gave everything in herself to make her people free and the West destroyed her all for their sissy sentiments, human rights sentiments,” Locsin said.

“I told Aung San Suu Kyi, be careful of the West. They destroyed Syria, they destroyed Libya, because they are hungry for oil and gas. They are not interested in the freedom of Burma. They want to break it to pieces because it is rich in oil and gas,” Locsin added.

Locsin also said that the Philippines will work for the re-installment of Suu Kyi and the NLD party, so that Myanmar can proceed with its democratic transition.

“With Burma, we work with powers around Burma, to see if we can convince the great powers there. Forget the United States. We are in talks with China, India, so we can go back to status quo, can we go back and put the mother of Burmese democracy back there and resume the progress towards freedom,” Locsin said.

He also declared that the Philippines will never work with the Western countries, including the United States, in dealing with the Myanmar issue.

“This department will never, never listen to the West on this issue. In fact, most Asian countries are looking at our leadership, my leadership, as a more nuanced approach to the Burmese problem,” he said.

“The last thing we want is to work with a country in the West who destroyed the Burmese democracy,” he added. — BM, GMA News