By David Nakamura

The Washington Post

May 7, 2017

As Secretary of State Rex Tillerson welcomed officials from 10 Southeast Asian nations this week, a Burmese representative handed him a personalized letter. 

The author was Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and de facto leader of the nation’s civilian government, who wanted to express her regret for being absent due to a scheduling conflict, U.S. officials said.

The note represented rare direct communication between Suu Kyi and the Trump administration. As President Trump has made a flurry of calls to foreign leaders, he has yet to speak with Suu Kyi, who twice welcomed Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, to her lakeside villa in Rangoon as a powerful symbol of U.S. support for Burma’s slow, fitful transition from authoritarian military rule to fledgling democracy.

The Burma project remains fraught — political reforms have ebbed, and Suu Kyi has faced international criticism for failing to speak out more forcefully against ethnic violence directed toward the Muslim minority. And China continues to exert economic and political pressure on the neighboring nation of 54 million, also known as Myanmar.

From Capitol Hill to Rangoon, the question is whether the Trump administration will continue to nurture Burma’s transition or turn its back at a crucial juncture.

“The country wants it. It gives them a sense of confidence,” Derek Mitchell, who served as U.S. ambassador to Burma from 2012 to 2016, said of political support from Washington. “But the focus on things we care about, such as values and democracy and human rights, they don’t feel that with Trump. There’s a cost in losing all of that.”

Behind the scenes, Burma’s ambassador to Washington has been pressing the White House for more attention from high-level officials, a sign of Suu Kyi’s uncertainty about Trump’s public silence.

Trump aides emphasized that the president’s failure to contact her is not intended as a slight. On Friday, national security adviser H.R. McMaster hosted the Southeast Asian officials, including Burma’s representative, at the White House. Trump aides said the president, who was away at his estate in Bedminster, N.J., would have stopped by had he been in town.

The questions over Trump’s approach to Burma come as the administration is starting to formulate its broader policy stance toward Southeast Asia and what role the countries there may play in the U.S. effort to further isolate North Korea diplomatically and economically. Administration officials pointed to several signals in recent days that were intended to reassure the region that the White House would maintain a focus there even as it scrapped the Obama administration’s “Asia rebalance” policy aimed at deepening U.S. security and trade ties.

In Indonesia last month, Vice President Pence announced Trump would attend a trio of security and economic summits in Vietnam and the Philippines this fall.

Tillerson emphasized to the Southeast Asian officials that the administration would make a “sustained commitment” to the region, said W. Patrick Murphy, the State Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Southeast Asia.

In a conference call with reporters, Murphy added that the administration’s relationship with Burma would be “enduring.”

In a separate interview, a senior White House official was more emphatic, emphasizing that Trump views Southeast Asia as “the most exciting component” in an emerging administration strategy for the broader Asia region.

This official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the president’s thinking, pointed to the combined population of more than 600 million among the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and their fast-growing economies as key reasons for sustained U.S. engagement.

The Trump aide jokingly referred to the countries as the “swing states of Asia.”

“This is a region that is fairly firmly rooted in a liberal order,” the aide said. “Some of those countries have — I wouldn’t call it a Jeffersonian democracy, but they’re facing in that direction. Burma is an amazing success story that we want to build on.”

Yet the administration’s failure to produce a coherent foreign policy strategy has alarmed members of Congress who fear Burma will be neglected or mishandled as the White House focuses on containing North Korea’s mounting nuclear weapons threat.

In his first meeting with Tillerson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told him, “Don’t forget about Burma,” according to people familiar with the conversation.

But McConnell, who helped shepherd the U.S. economic sanctions that prodded Burma’s military regime toward reforms, has been left trying to piece together where the administration is headed from scant public or private signals.

A Senate Republican leadership aide said that as the administration attempts to coax Beijing to do more to change North Korea’s behavior, it is unclear where Burma, whose opening to the West was once viewed as a hedge against China’s economic and military muscle, fits in.

“It’s a work in progress,” the Senate aide said. “It’s going to be slow going.”

Experts said Southeast Asian capitals remain wary of Trump’s motives, even as they were encouraged by his commitment to attending the regional summits.

“There’s a lot of concern over the way they’ve been engaged,” said Ernest Z. Bower, a Southeast Asia analyst and business consultant affiliated with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Officials in the region view Trump as “very transactional,” Bower added, and they fear Trump is wooing them solely to build international support for his administration’s push to further isolate North Korea.

Murphy, the State Department official, said the Southeast Asian representatives proactively raised the issue of North Korea in their meeting with Tillerson.

“We have heard from countries that they are taking steps, looking at the size of North Korea’s diplomatic presence and activities and commercial transactions,” Murphy said. “North Korea’s provocations threaten the peace and prosperity of the entire region. . . . We think more can be done.”

But some experts said the risk is that the Trump administration would reduce the emphasis on free speech and human rights as it pursues security cooperation. For example, Trump invited President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose administration has overseen a ruthless extrajudicial campaign that has killed thousands of suspected drug dealers, to visit the White House.

In Burma, the military, which retains 25 percent of the seats in parliament under the constitution, has long had ties to North Korea, including buying arms from Pyongyang.

Erin Murphy, a former State Department official who accompanied then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on a historic visit to Burma in 2011, said the Trump administration could seek to boost ties with the Burmese military as leverage against Pyongyang, an effort that could set back democratic reforms if not handled carefully.

“If you want to put the screws on North Korea — and the Trump administration has declared that a policy priority — you’d look at countries that are partners,” she said. “And if you look at that list, you would see Myanmar.”

By Joe Freeman

The Washington Post

January 12, 2017

Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims have been described as the most friendless people in the world. But for the past four years they had one powerful friend — and he lived in the White House.

President Obama, who gave a teary farewell to the nation on Tuesday in Chicago, spoke up often for the persecuted Muslim minority. His vocal support followed Hillary Clinton’s historic visit to the Southeast Asian country in 2011, the first by a secretary of state in 50 years, and his own trip a year later, the first by a sitting U.S. president.

The government in this Buddhist-majority nation does not recognize the very term “Rohingya,” and it sees them as newcomers from Bangladesh rather than natives.

But during that first appearance in 2012, Obama used the word “Rohingya”while delivering a speech at Rangoon University, saying members of the minority group “hold within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do.”

He used the word again during a visit in 2014, and in 2015 he hosted prominent Rohingya activist Wai Wai Nu at the White House for dinner. Many believe he helped raised the international profile of the Rohingya cause.

Europe-based activist Nay San Lwin, who communicates with a network of activists on the ground in Burma, wrote in an email that “Obama's speeches are historic for Rohingya. He highlighted about the dignity of our people while the Burmese do not consider us human beings.”

Since 2012, more than 120,000 Rohingya Muslims have lived in camps for internally displaced people in the state of Rakhine after religiously motivated violence there killed hundreds of people.

The community's plight got worse after a group of Rohingya militants attacked police outposts in the north of the state last year, killing nine people and setting off a military crackdown that Amnesty International said could amount to crimes against humanity. The government has denied allegations its soldiers committed rape and arson, but there is mounting evidence to the contrary.

With Obama departing, the Rohingya fear losing an influential ally in Washington, and are concerned by President-elect Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim remarks. Hard-liners in Burma celebrated Trump's election victory, and the country seems to be a blank spot on the president-elect's agenda.

Unlike other countries in the neighborhood, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and India, Trump appears to have few strong ties or business interests in Burma. He has also not taken much of a public stance on the country's concerns.

Andrew Selth, a Burma expert who teaches at Griffith University in Australia and Australian National University, wrote in a recent column that one of Trump’s only nods to the country was a tweet expressing his “thoughts and prayers” to victims of an earthquake in Burma back in August.

“That gesture aside, he has shown no interest in the country, nor demonstrated any knowledge of its complex problems,” Selth wrote.

He added there could be “greater distance between the White House and the Rohingya cause” if links between the attacks against police in October and outside extremist support are better established.

Optimists point to the fact that there has been bipartisan support for Burma as it emerges from five decades of military rule. But support for the new government of Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic activist-turned-politician who led her party of dissidents to election victory in 2015, and support for the Rohingya, who feel abandoned by her, is far from the same thing.

Obama illustrated this tension himself when he lifted the remaining U.S. sanctions on Burma last year to bolster Suu Kyi's new government, which officially came to power in April 2016. The move dismayed activists who saw sanctions as crucial leverage against the military's actions in places like Rakhine and other conflict zones.

Nay San Lwin said that even though activists in Rakhine “all think Trump won't speak for Rohingya like Obama,” he will wait and see.

In any case, he added, the Rohingya need more than words now.

The broad estuary of the Naf River separates Bangladesh and Burma. On both sides of the Naf, armed forces have amassed of late. The countries aren't at war — against each other at least. Rather, the soldiers are on the lookout for members of the Rohingya ethnic group. Burma wants them out. Bangladesh wants them to turn around and go back.

NEW DELHI — Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi said this week that it will “take time” to address her country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis and deflected charges that she has not done enough to speak out on behalf of Burma’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim community.

Suu Kyi spoke to The Washington Post as her administration marks six months in office, and as fresh violence threatens to derail the country’s peace process. 

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate and dedicated critic of the former military government came to power at a time when she must deal with a worsening humanitarian crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

The crisis deepened this month when assailants thought to be part of the Rohingya community attacked three police posts in the western part of the country, killing nine police officers. Scores of people were killed and villages torched in a military crackdown that followed.

Suu Kyi said Tuesday that video of the alleged attackers shows “clearly” that their intentions were to wage jihad and that they had exhorted their brothers from the Muslim world to join them.

“We are of course determined to contain the situation and to make sure that we restore peace and harmony as soon as possible,” Suu Kyi said. “We are not going to allow either the security or stability or the integrity of our country to be threatened.”

Suu Kyi’s government came to power in March after the country’s first election following decades of military rule. She said continuing the peace process with ethnic militias fighting in the country’s north and east was her top priority.

But her civilian government must find ways to work with the still-powerful military and take steps to rejuvenate an economy that faltered during decades of brutal military rule. Burma, also known as Myanmar, remains one of the poorest countries in Asia.

In August, Suu Kyi appointed former U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan to look into the situation with the Rohingya. More than 1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Burma, but they are considered stateless and have long been denied basic rights.

More than 120,000 are still living in fetid camps in Rakhine state after violent clashes with their Buddhist neighbors in 2012. They have little access to health care and 30,000 of their children do not have proper schools, according to a U.N. report in June.

The report cited a “pattern of gross human rights violations” against the Rohingya, acts that it said could rise to the level of “crimes against humanity” in a court of law.

The government restarted a process of citizenship verification for the Rohingya in June, but many of the Rohingya refused to participate, Suu Kyi said. Human rights activists say they were suspicious that some kind of new card would mean a further erosion of their rights.

“Things take time,” she said. “The situation in the Rakhine is a legacy of many, many decades of problems. It is not something that happened overnight. We’re not going to be able to resolve it overnight. It goes back even to the last century.”

Suu Kyi told the U.N. investigator that the government would avoid using the term “Rohingya,” which many Burmese consider incendiary. Many Burmese call the Rohingya “Bengali,” a reference to the fact that some migrated from Bangladesh years earlier.

“This is inflammatory,” Suu Kyi said. “We simply say Muslims of ­Rakhine state. Because this is just a factual description which nobody should object to. But of course, everybody objects because they want their old emotive terms to be used.”

Suu Kyi brushed aside the frequent criticism that, as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, she has not done enough to speak out about the Rohingyas’ plight. She did not go near the camps on a campaign swing through the state last fall and spoke of the conflict only in the vaguest terms.

“Well, I have spoken about it, but people don’t like the way I talk about it because I don’t take sides,” she said. “Nobody takes any account of that because that is not what they want to hear. They want me to make, you know, incendiary remarks, which I am not going to do. I’ve made it very clear that our work is not to condemn but to achieve reconciliation.”

Richard Horsey, a longtime Burma analyst and adviser to the International Crisis Group, said that Suu Kyi had made strides in addressing the issue after her government took over, including the appointment of Annan. But the spate of violence may change that, he said.

“These recent attacks have completely changed the landscape here and what’s possible to do right now,” Horsey said. “It has a huge potential to make the situation much, much worse and much harder to fix.”

Suu Kyi, whose official title is state counselor, spoke at Burma’s embassy while on a trip to India this week. The country is familiar terrain for her, as she spent part of her high school and college years living in New Delhi while her mother was ambassador here.

Suu Kyi, now 71, spent decades campaigning against the military dictatorship in her country, including a total of more than 15 years under house arrest. For her efforts, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.

She was freed in 2010 shortly before the military generals began economic reforms that were supported by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration.

Despite the resounding victory of her National League for Democracy in last November’s elections, Burma’s generals retain a tight grip on power, reserving 25 percent of the seats in the country’s parliament, which gives them veto power over any constitutional amendment. The military also appoints the key ministers in home affairs, border affairs and defense.

“Tacitly neither will challenge the other much,” Horsey said. “She’s not challenging the military on security issues and not pushing for changes in the constitution, and they’re not showing signs of actively undermining her civilian government.”

When Suu Kyi visited Washington and met with President Obama last month, he announced that he would remove remaining economic sanctions on the country.

They include a longtime ban on imports of gems from the country’s jade and ruby mines and a list of individuals and companies barred from doing business with U.S. entities. This final move should spur foreign investment from the United States, which remains a fraction of the estimated $9 billion in foreign investment in the country this year, experts said.

“We’ve depended on sanctions long enough,” Suu Kyi said. “Sanctions were put into place at a time we most needed a little leverage. I think it’s time that we moved on to a different phase.”

The polls are closed and the counting is finished. Burma’s Nov. 8 election has resulted in a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). The election itself was deemed ‘competitive and meaningful.’ Voters in the country also known as Myanmar were not systematically disqualified, ballot boxes were not systematically stuffed, and voters in rural regions weren’t cowed into voting for the incumbent party. Still, the elections were structurally unfair, given that the military passed an amendment disqualifying Suu Kyi from the presidency. That 80 percent of eligible voters turned out to support the opposition was an undeniable moment of triumph for the forces of democracy and for the determined and dignified voters who stood for hours to cast their ballots.

The historic election is just the beginning of an arduous and fragile democratic transition for this country of 51 million people. In 1990, after a similar NLD landslide, the military vowed to hand over power to any government creating a new constitution. Months later, it backtracked brutally. While many observers expect 2015 to be different because the military now has constitutionally-reserved powers that allow it a continued say in politics, a democratizing future for Burma is hardly assured. The new government will not be formed for several months. Until then, we are likely to see a lot of shrewd bargaining between the incoming government and the military. Looking ahead, the country’s democratic future hinges most critically on these four questions: 

1. Will the Burmese military relinquish political power? 

Genuine strengthening of the democratic transition will require a constitutional reduction of the military’s role in politics. The 2008 constitution affirms that a basic principle governing the country is to allow the ‘Defence Services to participate in the national political leadership of the state.’ The constitution accords the military 25 percent of the seats in the lower and upper parliament, 30 percent of the seats in regional parliaments, and full control over the three most powerful ministries: Defense, Home Affairs, and Border Affairs. Any constitutional change, including change that would enable Suu Kyi to become a future president, requires a super-majority of more than 75 percent of parliament. This grants the military an effective veto over constitutional change.

Changes to the constitutional structure of power will be foremost among the incoming government’s priorities. Yet diminishing the Tatmadaw’s (Burmese military’s) writ of power requires its own acquiescence. Since militaries with histories of coups are more likely to commit subsequent coups, what prospects are there for the military to willingly and enduringly retreat to the barracks?

The military’s desire to bring the country onto the lucrative development path followed by other East Asian tigers has probably contributed to its surprising decision to liberalize politics in 2011. But will the military stay out of power, as has happened in Indonesia? Or will it dive back into politics at the next opportune moment, as happens in Pakistan and Thailand? Indonesia too had military reservations in parliament – 15 percent of seats just before and 7-8 percent of seats just after the 1998 transition. In Indonesia, the military was induced to draw down its parliamentary and economic footprint over the post-transition decade by international pressure, a vigorously free press and a wide array of civil society organizations working on military and political reform. If the Burmese military is to follow a similar path of willing retreat, it will need continual engagement by these same actors. How the military’s role now evolves will be critical to Burma’s democratic future. 

2. How will the incoming government choose to spend its ample political capital? 

Whether Burma travels Indonesia’s path to democracy or Pakistan’s path to perpetual instability will also be determined by whether the new government can successfully govern and thereby undercut any rationale for future military intervention. In many ways, the new government will face challenges similar to those faced by a new government in many poor countries. How will it promote equitable development and stable ethnic power-sharing? How will it jumpstart modernization of its health and education systems? How will it initiate infrastructure development and manage the flood of foreign investment (and the inevitable environmental threats it raises)?

But unlike other poor and politically unstable countries, this election was fought and won simply on the basis of Suu Kyi’s titanic popularity. Consequently, we know very little about the incoming government’s programmatic agenda. Banking upon Suu Kyi’s personal charisma and legacy of sacrifice worked as an electoral strategy, but it will not suffice as a governing strategy. The NLD now possesses enormous political capital but also the weight of sky-high expectations. What will it choose to do first, how will it choose to do it and crucially, can it deliver? 

3. Will the NLD develop leadership capability beyond Suu Kyi? 

Going forward, Aung San Suu Kyi will serve as Burma’s Sonia Gandhi, selecting a mild-mannered president and ruling ‘from above’ while making all the decisions herself. The president will likely be someone similar to the elderly NLD former Vice Chairman Tin Oo who, not unlike India’s Manmohan Singh, is uninterested in developing an autonomous political career.

But regardless of who rules, will the NLD develop capable party leadership beyond Aung San Suu Kyi? Thus far, the signs have not been encouraging. Before the recent elections, the NLD’s executive committee rejected the candidacy of many vaunted leaders of the 1988 pro-democracy movement who had been crucial party supporters. Younger NLD members who were put forth as candidates for this election were gagged from speaking out on any policy issues. This was probably because the party’s executive committee correctly calculated that detailing policy agendas would subject the NLD to unnecessary criticism when relying on Suu Kyi’s popularity could deliver a landslide. But it is worth remembering that no NLD member has ever held an important elective office and that no NLD member has yet become an important leader through the party itself.

If the democratizing trajectory is to continue, this must change. My research shows that a well-organized national party with many experienced leaders was the single most critical explanation for the divergent democratic trajectories of nearby India and Pakistan. Democratic parties that centralize power in one individual are unlikely to remain in power when that leader passes away. Democratic parties that govern for prolonged periods are typically led by leaders whose careers are defined by party service. While Pakistan could not do without Jinnah at the governing helm of its nationalist movement to preserve its young democratic government, India could and did do without Gandhi at the governing helm of its nationalist movement. Will Suu Kyi encourage NLD leaders to emerge who can challenge her and thereby develop the party’s ability to govern without her, as it eventually must? Or will she continue to govern as a charismatic leader whose party will not long outlive her? 

4. Will Suu Kyi finally speak out against Rohingya persecution? 

During the past few years, Suu Kyi has refused to publicly condemn violence against the Muslim Rohingyas, regularly designated the world’s most persecuted minority. Viewing Suu Kyi through the prism of a Nobel Peace laureate and a beacon of moral courage, international supporters have been hugely disappointed at her willingness to condone the rising levels of anti-Muslim violence.

But when seeing Suu Kyi through the prism of a politician whose predominant aim is to move the country away from military control, this decision can be seen as politically instrumental. The outgoing government’s encouragement of Buddhist extremism amounted to a textbook strategy for mobilizing a majority at the expense of a minority. The outgoing government thereby intentionally put Suu Kyi in a difficult position: if she spoke out against powerful Buddhist extremists, she would have lost votes among religious voters. Remaining silent as she did may have maximized votes but brought criticism from both right and left: for coddling Muslims by the influential Ma Ba Tha extremists and for being morally bankrupt by the international human rights community.

This strategy cannot be morally condoned, but it could be politically understood. Now however, armed with an absolute majority in parliament and the still-copious goodwill of the international community, will she spend some of her newfound political capital condemning the Rohingya violence and speaking out in favor of human rights for all those living within Burma’s borders? Or, paralleling Prime Minister Modi in neighboring India, will she continue to be silent and pander to an extremist base? Her actions at this formative moment will have enduring consequences for whether Myanmar will continue on the bumpy road towards democratic consolidation or falter on the basis of minority exclusion.

Maya Tudor is associate professor of politics and public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University. She was in Yangon for the Nov. 8 elections as an international observer with the Carter Center and is currently writing a book on when militaries retreat from governing power.

NAYPYIDAW, BURMA — Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer sitting in her lakeside home in Yangon, waiting for her restoration. It has finally arrived. The woman who endured house arrest for the better part of 20 years heads the party that won a landslide election victory this month over the very generals who held her captive. In her office here, she talked with The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth about launching a democracy, ending ethnic violence, sharing power with the military and changing the constitution so that she can become president. Edited excerpts follow.

Were you surprised by your landslide? 

No, not surprised. We knew we had the support of the public, but we were worried there might be too many irregularities. It started off with all the voting lists being not quite adequate.

There were problems with the voter lists? 

Early on, just before the official campaign period started, the Union Election Commission chairman said he would be responsible for only 30 percent of the voter lists. That was a little bit worrying. So, I said to the public, “We’ll have to take care of the rest of the 70 percent that remains, won’t we?”

In some regions, people didn’t even vote for their ethnic parties — they voted for you. 

We have had landslides before, don’t forget.

In 1990, right? Were you worried the military might interfere like they did then? 

We still haven’t finished the process [of transitioning governance from military to civilian control]. And that goes on until March, according to the constitution. Of course, this is not 1990. Communications are so good, and the public is playing a very active role in making sure that everything goes as it should go.

The military controls 25 percent of parliament. Do you think you will be able to work with the commander in chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing? 

We can work with anybody. . . . You can’t avoid working with the military if you’re going to form a government.

Soon you’ll discuss the transition with the president and the commander in chief? 

They say they are going to meet me after the election commission has finished its work. I’m not quite sure what that means.

So they haven’t given you a date? 

No. Not yet. I suppose it means that they will wait 45 days. It is not very specific.

Are you worried? 

Of course, we are concerned. We’ve had too many rather strange experiences in the past not to be concerned. But we know the public is right behind us and that everybody who has been involved in the process has made public statements to the effect that they will honor the results of the election.

I can’t imagine spending almost 20 years under house arrest. 

I’m not sure that 20 years in that house was a difficult thing. I quite like that house. I got to read a lot. I got a lot of sleep, which I don’t do now.

You believed that democracy would come one day? 

Oh, yes. Because if you believe in the people, you believe in democracy.

You recently said that you are going to be “above the president” in the new government. Does that mean you want to change the constitution, which bars you from becoming president because you have children who are citizens of another country? 

I don’t really see what is so attractive about the title of president. What we want is the opportunity to be able to work for our country. And whether I am called president or something else, that is not relevant, really.

But it is relevant in some ways. When there is a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — or another gathering of heads of state — they are going to want you there. They are not going to want someone else. 

I’ll go there. I’ll go along with the president, and he can sit beside me.

Do you believe the foreign-born-children provision was written into the constitution to prevent you from becoming president? 

I think so.

Can you persuade the military to change it? 

They may not change it immediately. And that is something we have to be prepared for. Changing a constitution sometimes takes time.

But in the past you have said that constitutions are made to be changed. 

I do believe the constitution will be changed sometime. But I’m not saying it will be changed in the next two months. I think it should be changed within a reasonable period of time.

So you are going to appoint a president? 

Yes.

Who would you appoint? 

I am not going to tell you that.

Would you accept the position of speaker of the parliament? 

I am going to be the one who is managing the government. I think that’s as far as I should go.

How do you see your country’s relationship with the United States? 

Good, I hope.

Do you give the U.S. administration some credit for the fact these elections transpired the way they did? 

No, the reason we were elected is because of our people. Not because of anybody else.

The Obama administration took a big interest in this country. 

A lot of administrations are taking a big interest in what is going on here.

But the United States lifted most of the sanctions. Then President Obama and Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry visited. It seems they made a huge effort. 

Yes. But a lot of other countries have made an effort, too: Great Britain and Norway and the Scandinavian countries. A lot of countries have been very supportive of our democratization process, so I don’t want to single out any particular one.

But as I am writing for an American paper, the Americans are interested in hearing about our contribution. 

We have very, very good American friends, and I am very appreciative of all they have done over so many years. And I hope they will continue doing their best.

Does that mean lifting the remaining sanctions? 

Sanctions are not the only thing that matters with regard to progress in this country.

What else would you like to see the U.S. and the international community do? 

At the moment, I hope that everybody will support a smooth and peaceful transition and that everybody will understand that the people have expressed their will very clearly, and this must be respected.

But then what? 

Once we are in government, we will tell you what we want.

I assume you would like businesses to come here? 

Of course. But I want the right kind of businesses with the right kind of attitude. I have always said that I want businesses that are successful. But, on the other hand, we have got to profit out of the relationship as well. It is not going to be a one-sided business.

Would you like to see the rest of the U.S. sanctions lifted? 

Well, with a genuinely democratic government in power, I do not see why they would need to keep sanctions on.

So what else is on your wish list for when you come to power? 

I don’t like to think of it as a wish list. I like to think of it as my hardworking agenda.

How do you see Myanmar’s relationship with China? 

Good. We intend to maintain good relations with all our neighbors.

In the non-aligned pattern? 

Yes. We have been very successful with that foreign policy since we gained independence.

There is a lot of discussion about China’s motives — are they good, are they bad? What is their aim in the South China Sea? What is your view? 

Of course the United States’ view of China is not exactly the same as other people’s views.

So what is your view? 

Our view is that China is our neighbor, and we intend to have good relations with our neighbors.

Do you think you can really change this country? You say you want to enhance the standard of living. 

There are lots of things we want to enhance, beginning with peace and security.

Are you referring to the recent cease-fire between the government and some of Myanmar’s ethnic groups? 

Security is not just about the cease-fire. It is also about the rule of law. People need to feel secure in the towns. They never know what rules they have to play by, because there is no rule of law. . . . We want courts that are clean. And we have good laws, but we want to make sure that these laws are implemented in the right way with due process.

Another concern of the international community is the treatment of Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic group, which is Muslim. 

That is a problem. I don’t deny it. But I wonder why they think there are no other problems in this country. It is a very skewed view of the situation — to look at it as if this is the only problem our country has to cope with. We were talking about the cease-fire agreement earlier. Seventeen groups need to sign the cease-fire, and only eight so far have signed. I would have thought that was a problem, too.

Do you have any sympathy for the Rohingyas? 

I have sympathy for all people who are suffering in the world. Not just in Burma.

Some say the current government encouraged extremist Buddhist monks, like the group Ma Ba Tha, to attack Muslims and inflame ethnic tensions during the campaign. 

I have to say that a lot of religious propaganda was used against the National League for Democracy [my party] during the campaign. We have filed official complaints, and we have even filed cases with the police in some areas.

Ma Ba Tha charged that if people voted for the NLD, that would jeopardize Myanmar’s ethnic purity — that the country would be overrun by Muslims. 

Absolutely. That is wrong, and it is unconstitutional. The constitution states very clearly that religion must not be used for political purposes. But the authorities did nothing about all this propaganda.

It is interesting in that it didn’t really work. 

It did work in some areas — in a few areas on the borders. But we had to make people understand that this was false propaganda.

Do you share the view that in the past year or so, this government has been backsliding on reforms? 

They’ve been backsliding on reforms for a few years now.

In what way? 

I heard that a couple of days ago one of our journalists — he is the editor of Eleven Weekly, which is very supportive of the democratic movement — was stopped at the airport from leaving the country. He was just leaving for a visit. That seems a little strange.

Going back to the military, what do you think their red lines are for your government? And what are your red lines? 

I don’t think that is something we can discuss now. I have to meet the commander in chief first.

Are you in favor of amnesty for the armed forces? 

The term we use is “national reconciliation.” 

But there must be people who are very bitter about the way they were treated. 

I don’t know that bitterness really helps anybody.

But that’s hard to say to people who were put in jail. 

Life is hard. A lot of us have been put in jail. I can trot out any number of people from the NLD who have been in prison. I always say: “You want to see people who have been in prison? What do you want — five years, six years, 10 years, 20 years? We can provide all of them from the NLD.” And they are not bitter. A lot of people who have suffered tremendously are only interested in building up a better future.

Where would you like to see the country five years from now? 

Not where it is now. I always think of the future of a country as an unending process. I want to see it much further along the road than it is now.

The electricity appears to be really a problem here. It goes on and off frequently. 

I always say when the lights go off, “This proves that we are in Burma.” It is normal. The lights going off is the least of our problems.

How big an issue is land reform? 

Agriculture is a big thing. Seventy percent of our people live in rural areas.

There are no land titles, is that correct? 

Under the constitution, the state owns all the land. So every owner has the land for as long as the state allows him or her to have it. When it comes to our farmers, they are not able to use the land as collateral. That is a pretty big problem, and we need to sort it out.

Don’t you also need land titles to create a tax system? 

Taxation is also a big problem in this country. We don’t have a “tax culture” as such.

So how do you raise revenue? 

We have got to make people understand why they have to pay taxes. We have got to prove that taxes are used for their benefit and not to line the pockets of those in power, which is what has been happening for many decades. There is taxation now, but it is not something the state could live off.

What would you like your legacy to be? 

I would like to think that our age was the age that got the country going. I haven’t even started yet. So let’s wait until then before we start talking about legacies.

Communities living in the countries in darker colors in the map are at greater risk of state-led mass violence, according to a think tank connected to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

On Monday, the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide launched a tool aimed at forecasting the risk of state-led mass killings. The Early Warning Project tracks the apparent signs of a potential pogrom or assault on minorities within a state. Its findings stitch annual statistical risk assessments of individual countries — based on a number of models conceived by political scientists — alongside crowd-sourced opinion surveys of regional experts.

The 10 countries at the highest risk of experiencing a future episode of mass killing are as follows: 

• Myanmar 
• Nigeria 
• Sudan 
• Central African Republic 
• Egypt 
• Democratic Republic of Congo 
• Somalia 
• Pakistan 
• South Sudan 
• Afghanistan 

Earlier this year, WorldViews talked to Cameron Hudson, director of the Simon-Skjodt Center, about the threat in Burma (also known as Myanmar). Hudson had been part of a fact-finding mission to the country, studying the risks faced by the beleaguered Rohingyas, a Muslim minority that's been rendered stateless by decades of discriminatory Burmese policies.

A report concluded then that the Rohingya were a people "at grave risk for additional mass atrocities and even genocide."

"We’re very cautious when we invoke the term 'genocide,' knowing that it can be quite polarizing and sometimes even unhelpful," said Hudson at the time. "But there is a combination of factors — many of which you saw in 1930s Germany and 1990s Rwanda — that are quite concerning."

The project now is anchored in the Holocaust Museum's moral mission to educate against and prevent future atrocities, says Michael Chertoff, former secretary of Homeland Security and chairman of the museum's Committee on Conscience, in an e-mailed news release.

"No longer can governments say that they 'did not know' as a means of justifying their inaction," he said.