Burma coup deja vue

Joe Biden has only been in office for 12 days and already he has his first foreign policy challenge, with the military coup in Burma. Ok, the Biden administration has condemned the take-over but in diplomatic language that doesn't mean a lot. Sanctions? Well they'll be discussed by the United Nations no doubt. Britain holds the presidency of the Security Council at the moment and will be pushing for strong measures. The trouble is that the world's FORMER darling, Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of the Burmese government, now detained, whose gentle, longstanding rebellion against the former military junta won her friends around the globe, took a step backwards when she was allowed to lead the civilian government. Instead of condemning the Burmese army for rapes and murderous atrocities against the minority Muslim Rohingya people, living in the border area with Bangladesh, she denied the atrocities and said militants among the Rohingya had been responsible for attacking the Burmese army. It was a statement that so shocked us all that her position on the pedestal of goodness and courage suddenly looked somewhat shaky. Now she is back under house arrest, something she endured for 15 years during her long campaign against the military junta. I fear there won't be the same outpouring of outrage on her behalf as there was during those 15 years when her name was synonymous with personal integrity and bravery. She won the Nobel Peace Prize as a consequence. The coup is of course outrageous although not surprising in a country like Burma, beautiful though it is. The general now in charge of the coup regime looks nothing like the sort of monster dictator we have seen emerge in other parts of the world in the past. General Min Aung Hlaing, Burma's commander-in-chief, led the bloodless coup claiming it was justified because the runaway election victory for Aung San Suu Kyi in November was fraudulent. Had Donald Trump still been in power, dealing with that justification would have been tricky for obvious reasons. Biden will have to show that he is prepared to do more than just denounce the Burmese commander-in-chief. Quite what other than agreeing to international sanctions against the general and his cohorts, is difficult to predict. Whatever Biden does or tries to do will be blocked by China, Burma's closest supporter. In that sense, it's the same old dilemma. A military coup removes democracy from a country a long way away and there's not a helluva lot anyone can do because the big powers will not be in agreement.