You know that fiction governments & journalists promote about the distinction between the Aung San Suu Ky civilian government trying to forge democracy but helpless against the Rohingya genocide because it does not control the military junta? Whether that deceit comes from treachery to protect foreign trade & investments in Burma or from political naiveté doesn’t really matter when it comes to consequences for the Rohingya people. Investigative journalists should be able to distinguish the facts which speak louder than lies. This is Burma’s Home Minister Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe, a cabinet member for the so-called civilian government, who arrived today in Bangladesh to negotiate the forcible deportation of Rohingya refugees. For the moment, we can put aside allegations that Lt. Gen. Kyaw Swe orchestrated the 2017 assassination of Ko Ni, the constitutional lawyer who consulted for the Suu Kyi government & was shot dead at the airport while holding his small grandson. After all, they are only allegations & will remain so since it is excluded that Suu Kyi would initiate an investigation into a general who is a member of her cabinet.

We can however look at what is reported by the so-called civilian government itself. Its representative signed the forcible repatriation agreement with Bangladesh whilst the military & nationalist vigilante death squads are still torching Rohingya villages, bulldozing & expropriating Rohingya lands, & still executing & hunting down Rohingya fleeing for their lives. If it is true that the Suu Kyi government is attempting to forge democracy but cannot control the military, it would never agree to forcibly deporting people so the military can complete the “final solution.” What kind of democracy would include or ignore genocide? Exactly what kind of democracy is that civilian government trying to forge?

If the civilian officials have nothing to hide, it would also not put Arakan/Rakhine state on lock down so that human rights monitors & journalists are debarred entry to investigate mass graves, mass land expropriations, conditions in those camps. If it really is trying to forge democracy, it would want some heat put on the generals by international exposure of their genocide. But Home Minister Lt. General Kyaw Swe is in Dhaka to press for the deportation plan to proceed despite objections by several prominent politicians, human rights groups, & UN officials that the Rohingya are still in danger & do not want to go back & be slaughtered.

The Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief & Resettlement, a cabinet post of the so-called civilian government is the agency building the concentration camps for deported Rohingya–the camps that look like army barracks, don’t appear to have sanitation facilities, & are surrounded by reinforced fences topped with razor wire. Can someone explain persuasively how concentration camps fit into the plan for forging democracy?

Photo is Lieutenant General Kyaw Swe, Home Minister of the so-called civilian cabinet.

(Photo from Rohingya Vision)