During her tenure as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar from 2014 to 2020, South Korean international human rights expert Yanghee Lee shone a harsh light on the Myanmar military’s abuses, including its brutality against ethnic and religious minorities across the country.
Lee also expanded the scope of her reporting to cover key issues emerging from Myanmar’s quasi-democratic transition, including economic and land rights, gender issues, democratic space, legislative and constitutional reform, and transparency around the Myanmar military’s commercial interests. Her voice became particularly critical in 2016 and 2017 amidst escalations of violence against the Rohingya in Rakhine state.
As Special Rapporteur, Lee was mandated to conduct bi-annual visits to Myanmar to assess the human rights situation. However, in December 2017, the Aung San Suu Kyi-led government voted to bar Lee access to the country at the height of the Rohingya crisis and ahead of a visit scheduled for January 2018.
Despite the Myanmar government’s non-cooperation, Lee continued her mission remotely by visiting neighbouring countries, highlighting ongoing abuses and the need for international accountability for the Myanmar people.
In response to the military coup of 2021, Lee founded the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) together with two other international human rights experts to galvanise international political action to exert pressure on the military junta.
In conversation with Myanmar Now, Lee reflects on her time in the country and the future of Myanmar.
Myanmar Now: Did you already have a connection with Myanmar when you came to the Special Rapporteur role? What was your introduction to the country?
Yanghee Lee: I was with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2003 to 2013, and I saw Myanmar come twice before the Committee to review its compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I got very interested because Myanmar and South Korea share commonalities. I thought that I would [be able to] do more as a Special Rapporteur because of this.
Myanmar was colonised by the British, and then there was a Japanese occupation for three years. For us, the Japanese occupation lasted for 36 harsh years. Then we had two coups.
I thought I could share our experience—[Myanmar’s] then Union Minister U Soe Thein had said [to me], “We’d like to learn from South Korea how you became economically advanced.”
I looked at him and I said, “Sir, that’s because the military laid down their arms and went back to the barracks.”
Having been a child development specialist, I thought I could be more of an assistance than just coming in and criticising.
Very interestingly, after I was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, I heard that the Myanmar Permanent Representative had lobbied for me to get the special rapporteurship.
The Human Rights Council President said it was the first time he’s ever seen the country that the mandate is for going around asking that somebody be appointed.
I think they thought that me being a woman—and coming from the Children’s Rights Committee—they could take me for a ride.
I think they may have felt betrayed after my first end of mission statement.
MN: Did their attitude towards you change?
YL: Oh yes, dramatically. On my first visit in July 2014, I literally got red carpet treatment.
When I visited Kachin State or northern Shan, even in northern Rakhine, I would get off the boat, and there would be people all dressed up, ladies in their traditional dress giving me flowers.
In my end of the mission statement, I said—I thank you for all the cooperation, but I have to call a spade a spade. I was very harsh on the government.
The next visit, no red carpet. I would have people protesting.
In Sittwe, in Yangon, young people were going around with T-shirts with Ban Ki-moon and my face on it with slashes on it.
In other towns [people would] have signs, “Go away,” “We don’t want you here.”
MN: So what happened during your first trip? What angered them?
YL: In 2014 it was right after Du Chee Ya Tan [a village in Rakhine State where Muslims were attacked by Buddhist mobs]. I went to Maungdaw.
Then I went to Mandalay because there was a woman who said that she was raped by a Muslim, and that started the Muslim cemeteries being burned. Later I found out that she was not raped at all.
What angered them was my end of the mission statement.
I used the word Rohingya, which was not allowed in Myanmar. Even the UN country team would not use it.
MN: Do you have any particularly strong memories from your visits?
YL: Two things. Insein prison, and one time in a hard labour camp.
In Insein prison, I came across one area which the person showing me around pointed out to me. It had about 150 people or so, people couldn’t sleep lying down flat, and it had only one open toilet inside the place. I told them [the wardens], “This is not right. All these people, with one toilet and no privacy.”
The next time I went, two toilets [had been] had been installed, with minimum privacy.
In the hard labour camps the prisoners would normally have their legs shackled. They said to me, “We’re so glad you’re here… For two days we’re not out in the quarry, working in the heat. It’s so hot out there, people die of exhaustion. The past two days, we were kept inside because we had to clean the place for your visit.”
When I visited them, they did not have the shackles on. Every time I visited prisons, I would randomly pick the prisoners to interview and demand that these interviews be in privacy. Of course the room would be searched to see if any mobile phones were left to record the interview.
It’s really important for Special Rapporteurs to go to these prisons.
MN: Did you get any sort of inkling the military might launch another coup?
YL: It was so evident after a couple of trips that there was a master plan somewhere.
MN: What about your impression of Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government?
YL: I met her during Thein Sein’s government time too and we developed a good rapport.
When her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won in November 2015, my next mission was January, before the government was formed in April.
I gave her a list of some 200 old draconian laws, some dating back to British rule, that should be repealed or amended as a priority. I also gave her short-term, medium-term, and long-term benchmarks. I told her that the first 100 days of your government are very important.
Some of the ministries were very cooperative—the Ministry of Forestry, Ministry of Education. Each time I went they would come with updated reports.
MN: They had done their homework.
YL: They did.
I was really surprised, after October 2016 [when the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a Rohingya insurgent group, allegedly attacked police outposts, triggering military violence against Rohingya communities], she let me go to Rakhine in January 2017. When I came back, I told her to visit northern Rakhine and see for herself what was going on.
I also said, you should also go to Kachin, the people are disappointed that you haven’t visited yet.
Well, her answer to northern Rakhine was, “My minister is doing a great job, I trust my minister.”
“Kachin—I will go there in my own time,” she said.
She came up with this phrase, “Muslims living in Rakhine” and “Non-Muslims living in Rakhine,” instead of saying “Rohingya.”
I told her—“I’m sorry, I can’t say that.” For self-determination, they should be allowed to be called Rohingya.
“Okay,” that was her response. She didn’t fight me.
[Every time I saw her] I would say, I have to have a private tête-à-tête with her. She always let me have that. She would hug me and even kiss me on the cheeks.The last visit, in July 2017, she had Kyaw Tin Swe [the minister of the State Counsellor’s Office] sit in with her during our tête-à-tête.
MN: So this was after U Ko Ni, her constitutional advisor, had been assassinated, and the Rohingya crackdown [of 2016] had already started?
YL: Yes, that’s why I said, in January of 2017, that she should go to northern Rakhine. When she did not give me a private meeting (just the two of us), I sensed something was going to happen.
Three days later, [NLD MP] Daw Thandar registered a motion to the Pyidaungsu Hluttaw and it was voted unanimously to ban me from coming in, and not to cooperate with me any more.
MN: Aung San Suu Kyi knew that it was going to happen?
YL: I am sure she did.
MN: So what is your general sense of her and her attitude, now you can reflect?
YL: To be honest, as a person she’s very charismatic and likeable.
But I was really disappointed that she had spent so many years in house arrest and she had all that time to read to have a concrete plan. She didn’t have a blueprint of how she was going to govern Myanmar.
Remember, at first she wanted to be the head of four different ministries… [In the end she just] kept the Foreign Ministry and State Counsellor position. It was U Ko Ni who found that loophole in the constitution for the State Counsellor position.
But she was a very cold woman, with no empathy.
After U Ko Ni passed away—I had just met him a couple of weeks before—I expressed my condolences. I said [to Daw Suu Kyi], that he really was a champion in the area of the constitution.
Surprisingly, she said, “I have many more champions.”
She didn’t come to his funeral. She didn’t even send flowers. Even I sent flowers from afar.
Then to see her in the Hague at the International Court of Justice, coming out as the agent of Myanmar, defending the military for what they had done in 2016 and 2017, that was really shocking to me.
I found out in early August 2017 that the military was sending troops to Rakhine again. I made a media statement: “Why is the military deploying a light infantry division to northern Rakhine?” There’s nothing there. You’ve destroyed everything, imposed a strict curfew, security forces are always patrolling. Why are you doing this?
And then, on August 25, they say there were 30 posts attacked. No photographs of those places.
In 2016, they were willing to show everything. They took me up to Buthidaung to show me the police outpost that ARSA supposedly raided, killing nine police officers.
But in August 2017, 30 places simultaneously [were supposedly attacked], but no photos. Until now. I kept raising this issue.
Special Rapporteurs get information from the ground. We are the first to raise the alarm that something is imminently going to happen in places such as Rwanda and in other places. Every time, the UN always says, “never again,” but it is always repeating the same mistakes. No lessons learned.
MN: You hit a point of huge historical significance. Because the narrative is that an angry group of Rohingyas, ARSA, attacked the junta outpost, that’s why the military had to counterattack—that may not be true.
YL: Exactly. Light Infantry Division 33, the notorious one—why were they deployed in August all of a sudden? In my media statement I said the international community really needs to keep an eye on what’s going to happen there.
The divide and rule and the scorched earth campaign was happening in Rakhine. I saw how they burnt all the villages and how they killed people, including the elderly, women and children.
So in a way, the reason I am still [working] on Myanmar, is that I feel an obligation for the victims and their families. For the Rohingya, but also for all the other ethnic communities too, all the peoples of Myanmar.
I am sure that after the October 2016 so-called clearance operations, the international community did not react sufficiently, effectively, and immediately, which really emboldened the military.
That’s why they did the 2017 [attacks on the Rohingya]. There was no accountability—now they are using the same tactics to the entire country, even in the Bamar heartland.
But, at the end of the day, I think there’s hope in Myanmar, I really do.
This is the first time ever the ethnic communities are aligning with the NLD, with the Bamar people. That’s a window of opportunity.
MN: What kind of message do you want to give to the leadership of the resistance movement, to ethnic minority group leaders, and to the Myanmar public?
To the ethnic leaders, the common goal should be getting rid of the military. You may have different ways to achieve that, but right now, you share a common goal.
To the NLD and the National Unity Government (NUG)—you need something more concrete, with actions and deliverables, that can be implemented, so that the people can see.
It really depends on the NUG to reach out to all the ethnic leaders. It’s a litmus test for the NLD now, to hold the country together, to focus on a common goal, which is to get rid of the military rule once and for all.
And, I’m afraid Myanmar political leaderships have not cultivated the second generation of leaders. I think now it must.
That’s why I said there’s hope, because look how the young generation is resisting the illegal coup. They’re giving up everything to put an end to the oppressive military rule.
There’s no country in the world, in the history of mankind, where people are going into their fourth year fighting against a coup.
Usually a few months later, people don’t like it, but they accept them as de-facto authorities.
To the international community: you need to engage with the NUG and the ethnic leaders.
Cross-border humanitarian assistance is very important, not through official development assistance, because UN agencies deal with the junta to deliver aid, and that’s not going to the people who are in dire need.
When I talk about Myanmar my blood starts to boil again.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
