Myanmar

Bangladesh is now facing a serous dilemma over the future of 1.2 million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar. Its efforts to contain and isolate them from the mainstream community risk creating an alienated, extremist community. Australia has played an important role in helping to meet immediate

It has been more than two years since military “clearance operations” against Myanmar’s Rohingyas began in October 2016. Since then, the international community has relied on public criticism, unilateral sanctions and a range of measures in the United Nations and International Criminal Court

When Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) took office in 2016, a wave of euphoria swept over Myanmar, shared by many people in other parts of the world. At the time, there was a rather naive belief that everything would suddenly be transformed. It was widely assumed, for

Last week the UN Security Council was briefed yet again on the situation in Myanmar. This time the message was presented by the Secretary-General’s Special Envoy Christine Schraner Burgener. She talked, among other things, about the importance of accountability for Myanmar’

In 2000, China, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand concluded an agreement to begin clearing the Mekong River of obstacles so that cargo vessels could travel from southern Yunnan to the old royal capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. Neither Cambodia nor Vietnam, the other two riverine countries, were

The National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB) was made up of exiled pro-democracy leaders who were elected to the national parliament in 1990 (which was subsequently annulled) in one of the military junta’s very brief flirtations with democracy. I worked with them – largely

People go to the polls on Saturday in Myanmar, or at least some of them do. On 3 November 2018, the Union Election Commission will coordinate by-elections across 13 electorates. Most are to fill seats from vacancies due to deaths of senior members of parliament. There are two reasons these

This is the final in a series of three articles on the Rohingya crisis, featuring Morten Pederson on the domestic drivers of conflict, and Nicholas Farrelly on the consequences for neighbouring Bangladesh.  There have been a small number of militant Muslim groups in

This is the first of a series of three articles on the Rohingya crisis, with subsequent articles by Nicholas Farrelly and Andrew Selth to discuss the situation in Bangladesh and the potential danger from transnational terrorist networks.  The Report of the Independent International Fact-

For months, Myanmar has sought a deal with the United Nations, to validate its assertions that is prepared to facilitate the “safe, voluntary, and dignified return” of Rohingya refugees in camps in Bangladesh. In an arrangement struck late Thursday night, two UN agencies agreed to work with Aung

After two years in the job, Myanmar’s President U Htin Kyaw resigned last Wednesday. The 71-year-old has been in poor health for some time. A close confidante of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, U Htin Kyaw was a steady and stable hand. His resignation highlights the growing problem of ageing leadership

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Myanmar recently in a clear display of Moscow’s pragmatism. Many Western observers, especially from the US, present Vladimir Putin as either a Machiavellian mixer with almost superhuman abilities – he who put Donald Trump in the White House and

In July, shortly before an escalation of clashes in Rakhine state intensified the exodus of Rohingya people from Myanmar, Elliot Brennan wrote of Myanmar: Naypyidaw has failed to enable moderates in Rakhine state and an emergent yet hitherto weak Muslim insurgency has emerged. The situation must

Imposing sanctions always creates challenges. Sanctions provide targeted states with an excuse to shift blame onto outside forces. They tend to concentrate wealth into the hands of the most politically connected. They are rarely powerful enough to shift behaviour, especially when the behaviour being

Over the last month, almost half a million Rohingyas have fled from Rakhine State in Myanmar to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh. That represents approximately half of the entire Rohingya population in Myanmar. There are now 600,000 to 800,000 Rohingya refugees (officially designated as Undocumented

Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party took power in Myanmar promising change, but are yet to deliver. The problems faced by the incoming administration were considerable, and now the Rohingya crisis has prompted some calls for this fallen idol to hand back her Nobel Peace

The world is transfixed by the appalling situation in Myanmar's Rakhine State, itself a story of sojourning populations, commercial networks that go back to ancient times, and the modern state’s desire to draw lines between insiders and outsiders. The frontier region along another national border

The major and protracted humanitarian crisis in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State has serious local, regional and global implications. Many have rightly deplored the human rights situation and called for urgent humanitarian assistance while the world has become preoccupied with the silence of Aung

North Korea's growing nuclear brinkmanship, renewed tensions between India and China along their disputed border and persistent frictions in the South China Sea have all contributed to a renewed focus on inter-state instabilities in Asia. There is, however, another growing source of strategic

More than a year since Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy came to power after a landslide election and six years since the transition began, Myanmar has come a long way on the road to reform. There are many successes. The health system has significantly improved – basic essential

Twelve months ago, Aung San Suu Kyi was appointed State Counsellor of Myanmar, becoming the de facto leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) Government that swept to power in (relatively) free and fair elections in 2015. Over the past several weeks, both the government and Suu Kyi herself

A day after the assassination of U Ko Ni, the long-serving adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi and tireless champion for the rule of law and an inclusive, democratic Myanmar, outside Myanmar’s busiest airport, thousands of people – Buddhist, Muslim, and Christian – gathered at Yay Way Cemetery, a