Rep. Tom Malinowski on the Dangerous Situation in Myanmar

FMR. REP. TOM MALINOWSKI (D-NJ): I think it’s not our job, as leaders outside of Burma to predict what’s going to happen. We don’t know. Our job is to try to promote the best possible outcome. This is a long-running drama in Burma. We had a multi decade struggle to end military rule, to establish democracy, which led to a partial transfer of power to civilians in the last decade. But we have got to remember the military never really gave up power. The military was still in charge of everything having to do with security in the country. And this is just a reminder that the job of building democracy in the country was unfinished. So, I think the United States and democratic countries around the world, they have stood with the Burmese people for decades in this effort, and they’re going to continue and have to continue to stand with them.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, what was the fatal flaw, then, in this attempt to open the country up? The United States lifted sanctions because there was some perceived route to democracy. And yet, as you say, in that constitution, the military kept a lot of power. How is it ever going to be any different to what we see now? Did you — were you worried back then in 2010 or whenever it was that this might happen again?

MALINOWSKI: Oh, sure. I was worried in 2010. I was worried in 2015, 2016. There was a decision made by the United States and other Western countries to start treating Burma like a normal democracy, to lift all the remaining sanctions. And I thought then and still think that that was a mistake. That said, the policy did — the policy that we all followed did succeed in moving Burma from absolute, total North Korea-style dictatorship to a country that was much more open. And I think one of the differences you’re seeing now with this crackdown is that you have this whole generation of young people in Burma who have spent much of their lives kind of getting used to being pretty free, freedom of speech and freedom of movement. And they’re more connected to the outside world and to each other. And so they have no intention of going back and are showing great, great courage in expressing that.