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Voices From 2015 Burmese Elections: Wai Wai Nu

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Learn more about Chris Walsh.
Chris Walsh
Director, Global Policy
George W. Bush Institute

The southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) is set to hold nationwide multiparty elections on November 8, 2015, the first since...

The southeast Asian nation of Burma (also known as Myanmar) is set to hold nationwide multiparty elections on November 8, 2015, the first since 1990 when the country’s former military junta denied the opposition a landslide victory and put Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.

Burmese Young Leaders participating in the Bush Institute’s Liberty and Leadership Forum offer their perspective on the upcoming elections and the future of their country.

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Imprisonment. Discrimination. Isolation. Wai Wai Nu, a member of Burma’s ethnic minority Rohingya population, endured all these things before her twentieth birthday. She spent seven years as a political prisoner before being released in 2012. 

Bush Institute staff witnessed Wai Wai’s strength of character and passion for freedom during her time in the Liberty and Leadership Forum. It’s no surprise she’s becoming a globally-recognized champion of minority and women rights in Burma.

Now, with Burma set to hold nationwide multiparty elections on November 8, the first since 1990 when the country’s former military junta denied the opposition a landslide victory, Wai Wai has been sounding the alarm over Burma’s systematic discrimination of minorities, particularly the Rohingya. 

For decades, Burma’s government has persecuted Wai Wai’s people, passing legislation in 1982 that stripped many within the Rohingya community of their citizenship and more recently failing to prevent, and reportedly even perpetrating, religiously-motivated violence against them.  This year, the legislature enacted a series of laws known as the “Protection of Race and Religion” bills. The new laws empowers authorities to regulate interfaith marriages, impose limitations on when minorities can have children, and reject an individual’s religious conversion.  What’s more, the “Protection of Race and Religion” bills have coincided with government-led efforts to disenfranchise the Rohingya. 

Since June, Wai Wai has traversed the United States sharing her story with universities, the Washington Post, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, and President Barack Obama to rally support for Burma’s suffering minorities.  

As Wai Wai observed in an interview with Foreign Policy, “When a minority isn’t enjoying freedom with you, that isn’t democracy. Everyone in the society should enjoy freedom. Unless everyone’s rights and freedoms are protected, you will never achieve democracy and freedom in your society.” 

 

 

Learn more about Wai Wai Nu here.