Suu Kyi's support for the military's relentless violence has earned her much contempt and criticism, and rightly so. But too much emphasis has been placed on appealing to her moral sense of justice to the point that no strategy has been formed to confront the crimes of the Myanmar military and government, neither by Asian leaders nor by the international community.
Instead, an unimpressive "international advisory board" was set up to carry out recommendations by another advisory council led by Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary General.
Expectedly, the advisory board is proving to be nothing but an instrument used by the Myanmar government to whitewash the crimes of the military. In fact, this is the very assessment of former US cabinet member and top diplomat, Bill Richardson, who recently resigned from the board.
"The main reason I am resigning is that the advisory board is a whitewash," he told Reuters, asserting that he did not want to be part of "a cheerleading squad for the government."
He, too, accused Suu Kyi of lacking "moral leadership."
But that designation no longer suffices. Suu Kyi should be held accountable for more than her moral failings but, considering her leadership position, she should be held directly responsible for crimes against humanity, together with her top security and army brass.
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch is one of the leading voices among rights groups who are calling for the UN Security Council to refer Myanmar to the International Court of Justice (ICC) in The Hague. Even though Myanmar is not a signatory of the Rome Treaty, such a referral is the only way to take a non-ratifying state to the ICC.
This step is both legally defensible and urgent, as the Myanmar government has showed no remorse whatsoever towards the horrible violence it has meted to the Rohingya.
Robertson also called for "targeted sanctions," which will most certainly get the attention of the country's rich and powerful elites that rule over the military and government.
In recent years, Myanmar, with the help of the US and other Western powers, was allowed to open up its economy to foreign investors. Billions of US dollars of foreign direct investments have already been channeled into Myanmar and six billion US dollars more are also expected to enter the country in 2018.
That, too, is a great act of moral failing on the part of many countries in Asia, the West and the rest of the world. Myanmar should not be rewarded with massive largesse of foreign investments, while whole communities are being killed, maimed or made into refugees.
Without sanctions that target the government and military -- not the people -- coupled with legal action to prosecute Myanmar's leaders, including Suu Kyi, before the ICC, the genocide of the Rohingya will continue unabated.
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