Opinion Executions in Myanmar signal that generals don’t care what world thinks of them. In this, for Delhi, a sharpening challenge

The Myanmar junta has executed four political activists, one of them a former member of Parliament, in brazen defiance of civilised norms and laws that govern the international community. When the announcement came in June that the death sentences would be implemented, it was widely believed that the junta would refrain from taking this extreme step as it was in its interest not to burn every bridge with the outside world. The executions have been condemned by several countries. The US, EU, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea and the UK have issued a joint statement. So have the UN Secretary-General and the Human Rights Commissioner. And in an unusual step for ASEAN, the regional bloc which has a hands-off policy on the internal politics of member states issued a strong statement expressing disappointment that the junta did not consider an appeal by the current chair of the group and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen not to carry out the killings. The generals who rule Myanmar have signaled to the world that they do not care what the world thinks of them.

Two of the four activists executed were the well known and respected pro-democracy activists, Ko Jimmy and the Phyo Zayar Thaw, who had demonstrated in the days after last February’s coup that they could mobilise thousands to rally against the junta. Phyo Zayar Thaw had also been a member of Parliament of the National League for Democracy, and had worked closely with the party leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was recently transferred from house arrest to a prison where she has been placed in solitary confinement.

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With last year’s coup and now the executions, Myanmar has regressed at least three decades. The executions are, of course, intended to spread fear among the groups that continue to resist the junta’s takeover. India, a member of the Quadrilateral grouping, stands out as the one major democracy that has not yet said anything about the executions. For a country that aims at a larger role on the world stage, this is unfortunate. Delhi’s “twin track” approach — that of engaging with the junta to secure its own interests, while persuading it to return to democracy — will not work if Delhi cannot find its voice at key moments in its own neighbourhood. Myanmar’s decade of hope, during the early years of which the notoriously insular military rulers loosened their repressive grip but without giving up control, has given way to another era of darkness. India can be silent only at the risk of being misunderstood.