Witness to Genocide

Published on Nov 12, 2024 by Luke Hunt

Journalists and filmmakers Am and Steve Sandford have covered Southeast Asia as a couple for the last 30 years and have been intimately involved with the Rohingya in Myanmar since 2009, when members of the Muslim minority group began fleeing their homes.That culminated in a mass exodus amid an alleged genocide of the Rohingya in 2017, when more than 700,000 fled into Bangladesh. The Rohingya’s plight has gone from bad to worse amid the civil war in Myanmar following the coup d’etat in early 2021.The Sandfords have released a book – “Witness to Genocide, Chasing the Rohingya in Southeast Asia” – that details their experiences in gathering evidence. The well-written chronicle leaves readers with no doubt about the tragedies inflicted....

Sean Turnell on Myanmar

Published on Aug 30, 2024 by Luke Hunt

Australian economist Sean Turnell has released his latest book “Best Laid Plans,” detailing his efforts to lift Myanmar out of deep poverty as a policy advisor to Aung San Suu Kyi before she was ousted by a military coup in early 2021, when both of them were jailed.He spent 650 days behind bars as Myanmar was tipped into civil war by a military that ended an all-too-brief experiment with democracy and has since proven itself as ill-prepared on the battlefield as it is on the economic front with the nation’s finances in tatters.Turnell spoke with The Diplomat’s Luke Hunt about his new book and the technocrats who lined up and prepared the country for trade and investment with the outside....

Washington's View of Myanmar

Published on Jul 27, 2024 by Luke Hunt

Michael Martin is an adjunct fellow with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) . He's also a Washington insider with a firm focus on Myanmar and a civil war that erupted after the military ousted an elected government in early 2021. He spoke with Luke Hunt from Beyond the Mekong. Click here to listen..

Defining Genocide

Published on May 14, 2024 by Luke Hunt

A conversation with war crimes lawyer Michael Karnavas.Michael Karnavas is an American-trained lawyer licensed in Massachusetts and Alaska with 40 years of experience focused largely on war crimes and charges of genocide at tribunals in Cambodia, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia.He has worked as a criminal defense lawyer, in state and federal courts in the United States, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Tribunal for Rwanda, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), and the International Criminal Court..

Is Myanmar Failed State?

Published on Dec 29, 2023 by Luke Hunt

Throughout 2022, when Cambodia was chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the nagging questions inside the corridors of power were fairly straightforward. Is Myanmar a failed state? Why negotiate with a junta that has little or no control over the country? Luke Hunt writes for The Diplomat.Those questions were put on hold as Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen attempted to negotiate the bloc’s Five-Point Consensus with junta leader Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, creating a veneer of public respectability for all parties until Phnom Penh passed the ASEAN baton to Jakarta.Indonesia has since indicated a tougher stand and as atrocities have escalated, including four massacres allegedly committed by the military this month, such questions are again being....