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Comment by 99_00 | Hacker News Reader

Which is the government that committed the genocide? The one that sized power or the one that was thrown out, or some other one?

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It was done by the military, without reference to or oversight by any civilian government of the time, which had no say in it. The military in Myanmar was autonomous.

It is complicated. Long decades Myanmar was a military dictatorship. A few years back the dictatorship allowed democratic elections under the condition that it will conserve key positions in the government and there was this brief period when the country was semi-democratic. The military part of the government initiated the genocide, but the democratic part was accused for not opposing in any visible way.

After the last elections, the military were supposed to loose some more of their positions and hence the coup.

and from my understanding, the military's unilateral action is also in line with their constitution, at least according to the military.

so where does that leave us to form an opinion and activism about it? just because we have a democracy-boner doesn't mean we can ignore a country's constitution, even if it is flawed, does it?

and if our democracy fervor is really so strong for us to actually do something about it, then its hypocritical because we don't do anything meaningful about it in country's that are more relevant, and it makes us picking on the little country.

It is being argued that was not constitutional

You can check this for more info: https://melissacrouch.com/2021/02/07/the-illegality-of-myanm...

That professor is an expert on the constitution.

thanks, is there an authority or arbiter in that country left that people can respect, or does it now require external intervention

...or...

It's entirely possible for there to be no such authority in place, without requiring "external intervention". In that case the people who live there might create such an authority, or they might not.

Eventually we might realize how all humans are harmed by subjugation to authority.

can you explain what you mean?

There is an elected representatives that have the people's support.

A Supreme Court to clear it up, a court that people respect.

A branch of the government thinks its actions are constitutional, the people and the elected representatives don't.

Just because we are conditioned to favor outcomes that are more inclusive and democratic, doesn't mean it is the legally compliant option.

Just because a scholar and constitutional expert has an argument, doesn't mean it is the only interpretation.

So is there a court that can take the arguments from the scholar on behalf of the people, and the arguments from the military, and make a ruling?

"So is there a court that can take the arguments from the scholar on behalf of the people, and the arguments from the military, and make a ruling?" NO. They wouldn't be in the current situation if they had strong functioning independent institutions.

No. The Supreme Court judges have been replaced by the military.

There are no strong independent institutions.

> but the democratic part was accused for not opposing in any visible way.

I definitely found that strange at the time, especially since said democratic part had previously gotten a peace nobel prize, but considering she was imprisoned by the military before and after this whole semi-democratic experiment, is it well accepted now that she was mostly under the control of the military and had very little choice in any of the matter? Or do people still think she was mostly complicit for not speaking up, at the risk of compromising the little bit of democracy they had.

My understanding is she feared exactly what happened, a coup, if she spoke out. I'm not saying that is wrong or right but that's the position she was in and the choice she made with, now proven, fears of coup. Did she have a choice? Of course she had a choice but it would appear she saw it as "be morally correct" or "maintain democracy" and decided to go with the latter. I hate to say it but I'm not sure if I would have picked a different course of action given the same choices.

> I'm not saying that is wrong or right but that's the position she was in and the choice she made with, now proven, fears of a coup.

I am - it was wrong.

Her position went beyond making a hard choice, she defended the genocide and the generals. Describing the generals involved as ‘sweet’ and the victims as ‘terrorists’, she is part of the problem.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/23/aung-san-suu-k...

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/nov/12/a...

That's politics baby. If you call people you have the power to destroy you evil you're going to get destroyed.

Yeah, I'm not well versed enough to talk about the morality of it either, but I would assume that if she had come out against it, the military would've kicked her out, so they would've ended up with both a genocide and a coup. So it seems that it may have been a lose-lose situation anyways.

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