Irish Examiner view: Army ignores world’s criticism

Anti-coup protesters use slingshots to confront police at Thaketa Township in Yangon, Myanmar.

Myanmar has been under military rule since it won independence from Britain in 1948. Though nearly all former colonies, this one included, experienced a violent interregnum, the people of Myanmar have endured more than seven decades of post-colonial instability, autocracy, and violence.

Free elections in 2015 led to a government headed by Aung San Suu Kyi. In 2017, Myanmar’s army drove more than half a million Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, in what the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”. The military, which retook power last month, continues to rule with an iron rod, indifferent to international norms or censure.