"Why Myanmar’s military overthrew the nation’s democratically elected government" PBS NewsHour 2/1/2021
Excerpt
SUMMARY: The Biden administration has threatened to reimpose sanctions on Myanmar after the military there staged a coup over the weekend. Derek Mitchell, the former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar during the Obama administration who is now the president of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, joins Nick Schifrin to discuss.
SUMMARY: The U.N. is calling for an investigation into Myanmar’s violent crackdown last year against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group. But Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh are finally receiving aid, and despite repatriation discussions, many are reluctant to return to the people who brutalized them. Nick Schifrin talks to special correspondent Tania Rashid and Refugees International's Dan Sullivan.
SUMMARY: The Rohingya people, an ethnic Muslim minority group, have fled murder and persecution by the army of Myanmar to seek refuge in camps in
Southern Bangladesh, but their arrival has been less than welcome. Special correspondent Tania Rashid reports.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Now part two of Jeffrey Brown’s look at Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma.
After years of turmoil, the military government is moving toward political reform. But, as the country begins to open up to the outside world, there’s a new concern: how development could overshadow its architectural and archaeological past.
That’s the subject of Jeff’s report tonight, which also marks the beginning of a new series, one we call Culture at Risk. We will explore the impact of war, climate change, neglect and more on cultural artifacts around the world.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): The afternoon rush hour in Yangon, as workers board water taxis for the commute home.
On the streets, food vendors serve tea and noodles. Buddhist monks in their maroon robes are everywhere. And the ancient Shwedagon Pagoda, hundreds of temples, statues and stupas, remains the country’s most important shrine.
Yangon, the city once known as Rangoon, is often said to be frozen in time, the result of a military regime that kept this country largely isolated from the outside world for more than 50 years. But that’s changing now, and quickly, and a key question here is how to preserve something of the past while moving into a 21st century future.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): In 2007, the world got a horrific peek inside the closed world of Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma, as the military regime brutally crushed the Saffron Revolution, led by monks and students demanding political freedom.
In recent years, however, the government has signaled a new openness, promising democratic reforms, and proposing peace treaties with numerous ethnic groups in the country that have been at war with the government, in some cases since the end of World War II.
Jeffrey Brown recently traveled to Myanmar for a look.
Here’s the first of his reports.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): It is a land long shrouded in mystery, kept isolated from the world for more than 50 years.
Now, as Myanmar begins to open up, its wonders and beauties become clearer, but so do its complexities and huge difficulties. One place to see it all is here in Karen State in the southeastern part of the country, where signs of the past are a reminder of the tenuous political situation.
Not long ago, this was an area of violence, home to what was called the world’s longest-running civil war, as ethnic Karen people battled the central government for independence. But there’s a cease-fire in place now, offering the potential for peace and a possible model for this long-closed-off country.
For these young girls, their faces adorned with the traditional tree bark cream that women here use as sunblock, that means the possibility of coming to Pa-An, Karen’s capital city, to attend a government-accredited school.
These are the children of rebels who long battled that same government. And these girls have spent their entire lives in an internationally sponsored refugee camp on the nearby border with Thailand.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): By the tens of thousands, cheering people packed the streets of Myanmar's capital city today. The crowds waved American flags as they angled for a glimpse of the first sitting U.S. president to visit the Southeast Asian nation.
WOMAN (through translator): I hope he can bring change in every aspect.
MAN (through translator): I really hope that Obama will help build the transition to democracy. We have many ethnic groups in Myanmar. And they are also hoping that Obama will help them progress.
RAY SUAREZ: Also known as Burma, the country was under military rule for half-a-century and was largely closed off from the rest of the world. Yet, in the past two years, it's begun a rapid about-face.
And, today, President Obama complimented the Myanmar president, former General Thein Sein, and his reforms.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The steps that he's already taken for democratization, elections, the release of prisoners of conscience, a commitment to work with us on a human rights dialogue, all can unleash the incredible potential of this beautiful country.
RAY SUAREZ: From there, the president followed by admirers traveled to the home of longtime opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent most of the last 20 years under house arrest and is now an elected member of her country's house of representatives.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI, Opposition Leader: The United States has been staunch in its support of the democracy movement in Burma, and we are confident that this support will continue through the difficult years that lie ahead. I say difficult because the most difficult time in any transition is when we think that success is in sight.
RAY SUAREZ: Mr. Obama joined in that caution, telling an audience at the University of Yangon that those in power must accept constraints. And he saluted Myanmar's long struggle for freedom.
BARACK OBAMA: Above all, I came here because of America's belief in human dignity. Over the last several decades, our two countries became strangers. But today I can tell you that we always remained hopeful about the people of this country, about you. You gave us hope and we bore witness to your courage.
RAY SUAREZ: Wherever they could, people watched the speech on television, as the president pressed for more reforms. He also urged an end to fighting between ethnic groups and Buddhists and Muslims in the north and west of the country.
BARACK OBAMA: Within these borders, we have seen some of the world's longest-running insurgencies, which have cost countless lives and torn families and communities apart and stood in the way of development. No process of reform will succeed without national reconciliation.
(APPLAUSE)
RAY SUAREZ: During the president's six-hour stay, the government of Myanmar announced new steps to try to calm the ethnic conflict.
SUMMARY: President Obama's trip is the first time that a U.S. president has visited Myanmar. Ray Suarez talks to retired foreign service officer Priscilla Clapp and Human Rights Watch's Tom Malinowski for analysis on whether reforms are aggressive enough to establish a strong democracy and reduce ethnic conflict in Myanmar.
SUMMARY: Though significant steps have been taken, tensions remain between reform and hardline Burmese politicians. Margaret Warner talks to U.S. Campaign for Burma's Jennifer Quigley and Open Society Foundation's Maureen Aung-Thwin for more on what the U.S. role should be in encouraging Myanmar's path to greater democracy.
MARGARET WARNER (Newshour): Today, the Treasury Department removed Myanmar's president and house speaker from a list of individuals barred from doing business or owning property in the U.S.
I'm joined now by Burmese-born Maureen Aung-Thwin, who was taken off the Myanmar government's blacklist in the last few weeks. She directs the Open Society Institute's Burma Project.
And Jennifer Quigley, advocacy director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma. Both were at the congressional medal ceremony today.
