The Lives of Others
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In August 2016, the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State was created in cooperation with the Kofi Annan Foundation. Its task was to evaluate the social and economic issues affecting one of Myanmar’s poorest states. Aung San Suu Kyi personally invited former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to chair the body, hoping it could improve the lives of communities burdened by poverty and ethnic divisions.
The Commission consisted of six Burmese nationals and three international members. Among the latter was Laetitia van den Assum, a Dutch diplomat and former ambassador to Thailand. In this conversation, she reflects on her time with the Commission, working with Annan, facing Min Aung Hlaing, and grappling with the challenges still facing the people of Rakhine today.
Van den Assum became Dutch ambassador to Thailand in 1995, also accredited to Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia. Over her career she served across Africa, Asia, Central America, and Mexico, and spent time with UNICEF in Tanzania. While working in Kenya in 2016, she met Annan, who asked, “You know quite a bit about Myanmar, don’t you? Well, Aung San Suu Kyi has asked me to head a commission made up of both internationals and Burmese nationals, and I would like you to be part of that.” She agreed, fully aware of the complexities involved.
Her introduction to Myanmar had come in the 1990s. She recalls arriving in 1995, at a time of both economic opening and political repression. The SLORC regime was welcoming foreign companies such as Unilever and Heineken, even as human rights abuses continued. Debates in the EU and US about sanctions dominated diplomatic discussions. In 1997, during the Dutch EU presidency, van den Assum met Suu Kyi, who was adamant about sanctions despite their impact on the poor. “She became angry,” van den Assum remembers. “She even said something to the tune of, ‘The sooner we go down, the faster we will go up!’” Van den Assum later reflected that years of isolation had made Suu Kyi impatient: “What happens to a person who is isolated for so long?”
Because the military had not been consulted, Min Aung Hlaing— then Commander-in-Chief— opposed the Commission and even tried to expel its international members through Parliament. Annan immediately flew to Naypyidaw to meet him. The general was hostile, angry at being excluded... but could not block the Commission. “He could not stop us,” van den Assum says. This is because the 25 percent of parliamentary seats reserved for the military under the 2008 constitution was not enough to halt the process.
Convincing people in Rakhine that the Commission was there for all communities, not only the Rohingya, was another challenge. Once that was understood, cooperation improved. But in October 2016, after ARSA attacked police posts along the Bangladesh–Myanmar border, killing several officers, tensions escalated. In a subsequent meeting, van den Assum recalls Min Aung Hlaing and his generals arrayed like an interrogation panel. Annan asked when the clearance operations would end. Min Aung Hlaing replied: “Until we have all the guns that they stole from us back.” When asked how many units needed to be recovered, to van den Assum's alarm, the future coup leader replied that just 49 rifles needed to be recovered. His hostility was unmistakable; van den Assum remembers feeling that he despised them for standing in his way.
By December, the Commission was finally granted access to Maungdaw, a largely Rohingya town. As their convoy entered, women and children ran toward them. Kofi Annan insisted they stop. “They said that their husbands were missing," van den Assum says. "They didn’t know whether they had been taken prisoner. They didn’t know whether they were dead! And they talked to us at length about their concerns.” That was one of the few times the Commission was able to hear directly from ordinary people. Later, she learned the women were detained but eventually released. “They took a risk,” she recalls sadly.
The Commission continued its work into 2017, with repeated field visits, meetings in Yangon and Naypyidaw, and constant negotiations with stakeholders. Over the next year, violence escalated. The Commission issued its final report the day before ARSA launched further attacks; the military then expelled around 750,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. Van den Assum believes this was pre-planned. “We were not surprised,” she says. “But I think for most of the international community, as well as people around the country, it was quite a surprise-- the level of violence, the degree of violence! Unfortunately, as with many things in Myanmar, we [e.g. the global community] are shocked for a while, and then we move on to the next atrocity.”
She stresses the Commission’s limited mandate: development and reconciliation, not investigating human rights abuses. “You need people with forensic experience, people who know how to protect witnesses,” she explained. Their report— Towards a Peaceful, Fair and Prosperous Future for the People of Rakhine— focused on peace, development, and human rights as inseparable pillars.
The report contained 88 recommendations. Van den Assum emphasizes citizenship as central, pointing to the 1982 Citizenship Law that excluded the Rohingya. She notes that a full 25 percent of Myanmar’s population may lack proper documentation, including Rohingya, Hindus, Nepali, ethnic Chinese, and smaller minorities. “This is a huge issue that has to be addressed.” She expresses disappointment that while the NUG initially supported Rohingya citizenship in 2021, it later backtracked. “If the NUG cannot agree that all the people of Myanmar are equal before the law," she says, "then you cannot be taken seriously by your own people!”
Some recommendations, particularly those encouraging local community structures, were resisted by the NLD government. Van den Assum was surprised: “Anything that was to happen at a lower level where it really matters, they were not prepared to accept.” Suu Kyi thanked the Commission “profusely,” but resistance was clear. In their final meeting, Min Aung Hlaing presented “pages and pages” of amendments, which Annan firmly rejected. “People don’t say no to Kofi Annan,” she quips.
Initially, Suu Kyi had wanted to fund the Commission herself, but Annan insisted on using his own foundation to ensure independence. Though he was in Myanmar only a few times, van den Assum described him as the diplomatic muscle. “Even though Min Aung Hlaing could be nasty, he didn’t refuse to receive him. So it was, of course, for all of us in the commission, quite an inspiration to work with him directly on this.”
Van den Assum notes that the Commission’s work also highlighted broader systemic problems. The lack of reliable census data hindered development planning, as nearly one million people in Rakhine were uncounted in the 2014 census. “This has to be done carefully and slowly so that you get the buy-in of all the different population groups that live there,” she says, further pointing out that peace, development, and human rights were intertwined. “You cannot have one without the others.”
Turning now to the current crisis, van den Assum flips the concept of manpower onto the junta, which she says does not have enough people to govern all of Myanmar. The country is fragmenting, with older and newer groups clashing. She cites Shan State as an example, where local groups are experimenting with various forms of local governance. “The NUG has some good people, but it seems to be losing out a bit at the moment," she says. "Some of the armed ethnic groups are moving ahead and are doing things in their own way. But the interesting thing is that most of them still say we need some kind of central structure.” She worries that smaller groups, though committed, may not be able to sustain governance if fighting continues.
Van den Assum calls on the international community to engage pragmatically. Neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Thailand, she argues, should support humanitarian and development efforts regardless of recognition issues. She criticizes ASEAN for “collective amnesia” and laments Western aid cuts under Trump, which have reduced support when it was most needed. “The people of Myanmar must become more self-sufficient,” she concludes sadly, while noting that they still look to the West more than to China or Russia.
In closing, van den Assum believes progress requires genuine engagement with all the people of Myanmar. And she ends with appreciation of their effort thus far: “My admiration knows no bounds for those continuing to fight for their self-determination. They don’t see a way back. There’s only a way forward.”