If Aung San Suu Kyi dies behind bars, it will be the junta that killed her

The denial of urgently needed medical treatment for Myanmar’s most prominent political prisoner, the country’s democratically elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, is yet another stark reminder of the military regime’s inhumanity, barbarity and cruelty.

Suu Kyi, now 78, has been imprisoned since the military overthrew her elected government on 1 February 2021, and is now reportedly in such severe pain from gum disease that she is unable to eat. The prison authorities themselves requested medical treatment for Suu Kyi, who is suffering bouts of vomiting and dizziness, but that request has been refused by the junta.

The junta’s decision is illustrative of its total indifference to human life and human dignity. As her son, Kim Aris, has said, it is “callous and cruel”. If she continues to be in such pain that she is unable to eat, then her very life is in danger. Perhaps that is the military regime’s aim.

It would be convenient for General Min Aung Hlaing’s dictatorship if Suu Kyi died from ill health in prison. He would finally be rid of his nemesis, and free of the embarrassment of international pressure for her release. His regime would be spared the international outcry that would undoubtedly erupt if it directly executed her and could feign innocence and cite natural causes. Yet the world must be under no illusions. If she dies behind bars, it will be the junta that killed her.

Let’s remember what this regime has been capable of in the two-and-a-half years since it illegally seized power. It has arrested almost 25,000 people, continues to hold almost 20,000 political prisoners in jail and has killed more than 4,000 civilians, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

Last year it executed four prominent political activists, including the parliamentarian Phyo Zeya Thaw and the dissident Ko Jimmy, both of whom I had met several times personally.

It has caused the displacement of well over 1.5 million people, scorched at least 70,000 homes and, according to the United Nations, plunged at least 17.6 million people in Burma into a dire humanitarian crisis.

Volker Turk, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has said the junta is perpetrating “sexual violence, mass killings, extrajudicial executions, beheadings, dismemberments and mutilations.” In July, Turk warned that Myanmar is in “deadly freefall” into “even deeper violence and heartbreak,” with the military regime engaging in a “systematic denial” of humanitarian aid to its people.

The regime has shown a particularly criminal disinterest in the right to health.

Hundreds of doctors and medics have been arrested and imprisoned for participating in protests or civil disobedience actions following the coup, including – in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic – the two most senior Public Health Department officials, Dr Htar Htar Lin and Dr Soe Oo, on what the UN calls “spurious charges of corruption”.

Health workers have been assaulted, ambulances attacked, and hospitals and clinics raided. At the height of the pandemic, the military seized oxygen tanks, personal protective equipment (PPE) and vaccines for their own use.

More recently, the junta’s campaign of airstrikes against civilians in the ethnic states has led to the deliberate bombing of clinics and deliberately obstructing access to medical care through roadblocks and checkpoints and confiscating medicines.

Put in this context, the denial of medical treatment to Suu Kyi is not a surprise. But it is a scandal which, along with the crimes against humanity inflicted on the people of Myanmar, should shock the conscience of the world.

For too long the atrocities in Myanmar have received disproportionately little attention. In part, this is because other crises – notably Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine – have dominated the agenda. In part, it is because of disillusionment that after a decade of apparent opening in Myanmar – albeit very fragile – the doors have slammed shut and hopes of democracy demolished by the coup.

And in part, it is because of understandable discomfort with the compromises Suu Kyi made during the five years in which she shared power in government with the military that is now holding her as a prisoner.

But whatever disagreements we may have with her over the positions she took, for example, over the genocide of the Rohingyas or the war against Myanmar’s ethnic nationalities, and however profound those disagreements may be, she does not deserve to be in jail, and she certainly deserves the basic right to medical care.

Disagreement with her record in government does not justify apathy over her plight or that of her country today. She won an overwhelming re-election mandate in democratic elections in 2020 and should be well into her second term in government, not in prison and at risk of death.

The international community has taken some welcome steps. Targeted sanctions have been imposed on the military and its assets, the UN has imposed an arms embargo, and some action is being taken to sanction aviation fuel, to impede the military’s airstrikes against civilians.

But much more is needed. The junta that holds Suu Kyi and almost 20,000 other political prisoners behind bars and bombs its people is financed, armed, backed and excused in the halls of diplomacy by the world’s two champions of authoritarianism: Xi Jinping’s China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

The international community – the United Kingdom, the United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia, together with Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – needs to wake up and give Myanmar’s crisis much more urgent attention.

They must intensify the effort to cut the lifeline to the regime – by cutting funds, fuel and arms – and providing a lifeline to the people. And they could start by demanding that Suu Kyi be allowed to see a doctor.

Benedict Rogers is a human rights activist and writer. He is the senior analyst at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, author of three books on Myanmar and a new book, ‘The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny’ (Optimum Publishing International, 2022), which includes a chapter on China-Myanmar relations