Myanmar's leader Min Aung Hlaing has ordered Aung San Suu Kyi to serve the remainder of her sentence under house arrest. Fletcher and Octavio dig into what this gesture means for democracy in Myanmar and beyond.
El presidente de Myanmar, Min Aung Hlaing, ha ordenado que Aung San Suu Kyi cumpla el resto de su condena en arresto domiciliario. Fletcher y Octavio exploran qué significa este gesto para la democracia en Myanmar y para el mundo.
5 essential A2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| golpe de estado | coup d'état | El ejército tomó el poder en un golpe de estado. |
| libre | free | Ella es libre, pero no está en libertad. |
| prisión | prison | Ella está en prisión desde el año 2021. |
| ejército | military / army | El ejército tiene mucho poder en Myanmar. |
| confianza | trust | Sin confianza, no hay paz posible. |
Myanmar's military just moved Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to house arrest.
And I've been trying to figure out for two days whether that's a news story or a magic trick.
Es un gesto.
It's a gesture.
No es un cambio real.
It's not a real change.
A gesture.
Right.
And I want to pull at that, because for people who don't know this story, the name Aung San Suu Kyi is enormous.
Give me the short version.
Ella es la líder del pueblo de Myanmar.
She is the leader of the people of Myanmar.
Muy famosa en el mundo.
Very famous in the world.
Nobel Peace Prize, 1991.
Spent the better part of fifteen years under house arrest under previous military governments.
Then there was a decade where it looked like Myanmar might actually be building something real, a genuine democratic opening.
And then February 2021.
El ejército tomó el poder.
The military seized power.
Es el golpe de estado.
It is the coup.
The coup.
Min Aung Hlaing, the general who runs the country now, arrested Suu Kyi the morning of the election results.
She had just won a landslide.
And then the trials began.
Muchos juicios.
Many trials.
Muchos años en prisión.
Many years in prison.
Twenty-seven years in total, between all the convictions.
Corruption, election fraud, violating COVID restrictions, importing walkie-talkies illegally.
The charges were almost comically varied.
It had the feel of a government that wanted her gone and was reaching for any nail to hang the coat on.
Sí.
Yes.
El ejército tiene miedo de ella.
The military is afraid of her.
That's the thing, isn't it.
She's seventy-nine, she's been in detention for years, and they are still afraid of her name.
Su nombre es muy importante para el pueblo.
Her name is very important to the people.
So now Min Aung Hlaing says she can serve the rest of her sentence at home.
And he also announces a one-sixth reduction in sentences for all prisoners across the board.
What's your read on the timing?
Es política.
It's politics.
No es bondad.
It's not kindness.
El general necesita algo.
The general needs something.
He needs something.
My thought exactly.
The junta has been in serious military trouble for two years.
The resistance forces, the People's Defence Force, the ethnic armed groups, they've been winning territory.
This is not a regime that looks comfortable.
La guerra en Myanmar es muy difícil para el ejército.
The war in Myanmar is very difficult for the military.
And internationally, the junta is almost completely isolated.
ASEAN has frozen Myanmar's political participation.
Western sanctions are in place.
So you have a regime under military pressure and diplomatic pressure simultaneously.
And suddenly Suu Kyi is at home.
Es una señal para el mundo.
It is a signal to the world.
"Mira, somos buenos."
"Look, we are good people."
A rebranding exercise.
And the thing is, it's not the first time.
Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest, was released, was put back.
This cycle has run before.
The generals know exactly what they're doing with this particular move.
En el pasado, la casa era también una prisión.
In the past, the house was also a prison.
Her house on University Avenue in Rangoon, on the lake.
I've seen photographs.
It's beautiful and it was a cage.
She wasn't allowed visitors, she had very limited communication with the outside world.
House arrest in a democracy and house arrest under a military junta are not the same thing.
Libre no es libre.
Free is not free.
Depende de quién tiene el poder.
It depends on who has the power.
That's a sharp way to put it.
There's also the question of her health.
She's pushing eighty and the conditions she's been held in, the fact that the trials were held in secret, it's been genuinely hard to get any confirmed information about her physical state.
La gente no sabe cómo está ella.
People don't know how she is.
Nadie puede verla.
Nobody can see her.
Which is its own form of cruelty, actually.
Her supporters, her party, the millions of people who voted for her, they've been living with that uncertainty for years.
En Myanmar, muchas personas tienen miedo.
In Myanmar, many people are afraid.
No pueden hablar.
They cannot speak.
The repression since the coup has been severe.
The UN estimates over five thousand civilians killed.
More than twenty thousand political prisoners.
The internet is restricted, the press is controlled.
And the resistance has been extraordinary, actually.
People who had never held a weapon decided to fight.
La gente joven lucha por la democracia.
Young people fight for democracy.
Es muy valiente.
It is very brave.
I covered a fair amount of this region in my time.
Southeast Asia has this complicated relationship with the idea of civilian government.
You had Thailand's coups, Indonesia's long Suharto years, the Philippines under Marcos.
And Myanmar sits inside that history.
El ejército de Myanmar tiene mucho poder desde hace muchos años.
Myanmar's military has had a lot of power for many years.
Since 1962.
That's when Ne Win took power.
So this military dominance has roots that go back over sixty years.
And the thing that made Suu Kyi remarkable was that she managed to win elections in spite of it, twice.
The 2015 result, then again in 2020, and both times the army found a way to hold onto real power.
El ejército siempre tiene las armas.
The military always has the weapons.
Las armas tienen el poder.
The weapons have the power.
That's a bleak formulation but I can't argue with it.
The constitution that was written under military supervision, before the democratic transition, reserved twenty-five percent of parliamentary seats for the military.
Built-in veto power.
And then when even that wasn't enough, they just took everything.
Es una historia muy triste para Myanmar.
It is a very sad story for Myanmar.
And there's a layer of this story that I think gets lost outside the region, which is that Suu Kyi herself was a complicated figure even before the coup.
The international community built her up as this icon of pure democratic virtue, and then the Rohingya crisis happened.
Sí.
Yes.
Ella no habló mucho sobre los rohingya.
She did not speak much about the Rohingya.
Muchas personas estaban tristes.
Many people were sad.
She went to The Hague and defended the military against genocide charges.
After everything she had suffered at their hands.
It cost her enormous moral authority in the West.
And yet inside Myanmar, the majority Buddhist population largely still supported her.
That contradiction tells you something about how nationalism and democracy don't always travel together.
La política es muy difícil.
Politics is very difficult.
Las personas son complicadas.
People are complicated.
That might be the most honest thing anyone has said on this podcast.
So where does this leave things?
She's at home.
The regime is still in power.
The war continues.
Is there any scenario in which this leads somewhere?
Quizás el ejército quiere hablar con sus enemigos.
Perhaps the military wants to talk with its enemies.
Necesitan paz.
They need peace.
A negotiating chip.
They move Suu Kyi to house arrest to signal they're willing to deal.
It's a theory.
The problem is nobody in the resistance trusts the junta enough to come to a table.
Why would they?
The last time there was a negotiated political opening, it ended in a predawn arrest.
La confianza es muy importante.
Trust is very important.
Sin confianza, no hay paz.
Without trust, there is no peace.
And there's a generational thing happening too.
The young people who took up arms after the coup, some of them are frankly disillusioned with Suu Kyi and her generation of politicians.
They want something different.
So even if she were fully released tomorrow, the political landscape isn't waiting for her to come back and lead it.
La gente joven tiene ideas nuevas.
Young people have new ideas.
El futuro no es el pasado.
The future is not the past.
The future is not the past.
I want to put that on a wall somewhere.
Okay, you used a word a few minutes back that caught my attention.
You said "libre." But earlier you also said "en libertad." Are those the same thing?
No es lo mismo.
It is not the same thing.
"Libre" es un adjetivo.
"Libre" is an adjective.
"En libertad" es una situación.
"En libertad" is a situation.
Walk me through the difference.
Because in English I'd say "she is free" for both.
"Ella es libre" significa que la libertad es parte de ella.
"Ella es libre" means freedom is part of her.
Es su naturaleza.
It is her nature.
"Ella está en libertad" significa que ahora no está en prisión.
"Ella está en libertad" means she is not in prison right now.
So "es libre" is about who she is as a person, and "está en libertad" is about her current circumstances.
The ser and estar distinction, showing up again to make my life difficult.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Y en el caso de Suu Kyi, ella es libre, pero no está en libertad.
And in Suu Kyi's case, she is a free person by nature, but she is not at liberty.
Todavía.
Yet.
That's actually a perfect way to close this.
She is free by nature, but not yet free by circumstance.
Ser versus estar, carrying the whole weight of a political situation in two little verbs.
Octavio, thank you.
And Myanmar, as always, we're watching.