Derek Tonkin writes: On 19 October 2023 the Brighton and Hove City Council revoked the Freedom of the City awarded to Daw Aung Suu Kyi in 2011. Their decision was based on allegations that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi had acquiesced in, if not supported, the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Rohingya Muslim population in Rakhine State. In this memorandum I analyse the in-house briefing prepared for the Council and show how it was seriously flawed. I examine what Daw Aung San Suu Kyi actually said and did in the context of the Rohingya crisis. Few if any Council members or officials are likely to have more than a superficial knowledge of the Myanmar reality, of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s precarious situation in Myanmar politics and of her lack of any influence at all over the Myanmar. military who were totally independent of the civilian administration in their operations.

It has yet to dawn on the Council that the only people to have benefitted from this sorry saga are the military junta themselves. For if a British institution like the Council, claiming the moral high ground yet exhibiting misguided, self-righteous delusion, can indulge in ruthless criticism of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the basis of biased and fabricated misinformation, then so too can the military junta. It is to be hoped that the Council, on reflection, will realise the extent of the injustice which they have done to this ailing, aged and arbitrarily detained political prisoner. This has not been their finest hour.

Message sent on 5 November 2023 to Brighton and Hove City Councillors who spoke at the Special Meeting on 19 October 2023

It is remarkable, indeed unprecedented, that a UK Government body, in this case the Brighton and Hove City Council, should sanction a political prisoner, an elderly lady of 78 years of age, whose younger son, Kim Aris, told Richard Lloyd Parry in an interview in the 'The Times Magazine' of 4 November 2023 that he fears he will never see his mother again. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been detained virtually incommunicado for over 30 months in a cell house 5m x 8m (see satellite photo below) in a central Myanmar jail by a despotic military regime condemned for its human rights abuses. The Australian academic and economist Sean Turnell, who was a prisoner in the same jail for 650 days, has promised to give a graphic description of her living conditions in his book “An Unlikely Prisoner” to be released shortly. Her immediate and unconditional release has been demanded by the UN General Assembly in their Resolution of 14 June 2021 (Paragraph 2).

The action taken by the Council is callous and indefensible, for several Councillors were informed of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s predicament by email on 17 October 2023, two days before the Special Council meeting on 19 October 2023.

Myanmar Coup Two Years on: Neighbours' Pragmatism

• EIU does not expect outside actors to meaningfully alter the course of conflicts in Myanmar, given limited political and economic leverage over junta leaders and armed resistance, and the lack of a unified approach.
• Pragmatism underpins Myanmar's neighbours' approach to the country. China, Thailand and India will not rescind tacit support for the junta given practical concerns closer to home, such as border security and natural resources trade.
• Indonesia, the 2023 rotational chair of the Association of South‑East Asian Nations (ASEAN), has steered the bloc towards promoting dialogue. However, ASEAN's capacity to mediate conflicts is ultimately constrained by its institutional structure.

Violence and Belonging: Conflict, War and Insecurity in Arakan 1942-1952

SEATIDE : CRISEA : Silkworm Books - March 2023

Jacques Leider writes: "The decade from 1942 to 1952 was a period of abrupt political and social change in Burma’s province of Arakan. Power and political agency shifted and were redistributed in a context of warfare, transition from colonization to independence, and struggles for autonomy. Devastation, bloodshed, and rampant poverty were features of this troubled period where regionally dominant Buddhist and Muslim populations went through a process of increased self-awareness and a reshaping of ethnohistorical identification. The present chapter, a contribution to this volume on identity formation in Southeast Asia, looks at the interaction of multiple forms of violence with the consolidation of belonging. Violence and belonging were underpinned by the politics of community formation which persisted and hardened during the following decades, engendering new intercommunal strife."

Derek Tonkin writes: The Union Election Commission in Myanmar has presented no evidence of alleged election fraud which they say was committed at the 8 November 2020 elections. There is a world of difference between anomalies in the voter lists and the alleged criminal exploitation of these anomalies by over 40% of those who actually voted. The allegations defy common sense and are an insult to the Myanmar people. 

Notes on progress towards Self-Government and Independence 1945-47

Derek Tonkin writes: The Notes examine appointments made to the Executive Councils formed on (a) 3 November 1945 by Governor Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, and on (b) 28 September 1946 and (c) 20 July 1947 by Governor Sir Hubert Rance, as well as the latter's appointments to the Council of Ministers on  (d) 1 August 1947. The Notes draw mainly on Professor Hugh Tinker's two-volume "Burma: The Struggle for Independence 1944-1948", reports in "The Times" of London and debates in the UK House of Commons.**