On Saturday, around a hundred exiles from Myanmar met in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, to cook up and discuss their homesickness. “It is particularly ridiculous that the junta accuses Aung San Suu Kyi of things that it violates itself: bribery, disturbance of public order,” said Aye Min Thant on the occasion, up to the overthrow of the former de facto head of government still at the news agency Reuters employed in Yangon, now also in exile, like all former colleagues.
Reuters also reported first on Monday that the first judgments had been made against the 76-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment for “inciting” and “violating a law in the event of natural disasters,” a source familiar with the process said to the news agency. Apparently, President Win Myint, who was also ousted, was sentenced to the same street. Two years each for causing troubles and two years for violating the Covid-19 regulations. Details are not known.
The trial in the capital, Naypyidaw, is going on behind closed doors. The lawyers of Aung San Suu Kyi are forced by a gag agreement to keep silent about the events if they do not want to endanger themselves. What gets through every now and then is that Aung San Suu Kyi and her imprisoned party colleagues have been confronted with new charges since February. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won an overwhelming election last year, but the military refused to accept the result.
Aung San Suu Kyi is said to be locked away for the rest of her life
Aung San Suu Kyi, who has already been imprisoned and under house arrest for 15 years for campaigning against the junta, is likely to be locked away for the rest of her life if found guilty on all charges. The four years are just the beginning and just one conviction in two of many allegations.
More than 10,000 people have been detained since February this year. A wave of layoffs two months ago was just a diversion, as many independent observers suspected at the time. At least 1,300 people were killed in protests, house searches and torture in prison. However, this only strengthened the resistance. The event of the exiles in Chiang Mai served not only to curb homesickness by preparing familiar dishes, but also to raise money for the “People Soldiers” an organization that tries to enable soldiers to get out of the military apparatus .
Since the coup, the military has struggled to enforce the new order. The economy is down, the health and education systems have collapsed. The banks have been on strike for so long that they only function sporadically. Last month, the UN’s Special Advisory Council on Myanmar warned that the military was cutting food and medicine supplies and bringing people to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. The military has to keep itself and its troops presumably more than 400,000 strong.
That is also the background of the puppet process, in which the first judgments have now been made. It’s not about law or justice, but about a show in which you want to prove to other countries that everything is in order. Especially potential investors and those who have withdrawn economically from Myanmar. The military cannot survive long without lucrative stakes in breweries and telecommunications companies. Resistance organizations have been pointing out since February when corporations do business in Myanmar, when the generals keep accounts abroad or send their children to expensive private schools, for example in the USA.
Six weeks ago, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing was dismissed from the Asean meeting because an independent observer was not allowed to speak to Aung San Suu Kyi. Also today, however, came the news that Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen believes that Myanmar has “a right” to attend the meeting. Hun Sen will take over the chairmanship of the Asean next year and hopes that Myanmar “comes back to the table as soon as possible”.
Even more exciting than the show trial of Aung San Suu Kyi could be how the international community deals with the junta in the coming weeks and months. Whether the UN will find a common line, despite the interventions of individual members, and whether the Asean leaders give in and take General Min Aung Hlaing into their midst.