Erstellt am: 12. 4. 2013 - 14:10 Uhr

Is 'The Lady' losing her "moral authority?"

Reality Check: Aung San Suu Kyi is under fire, biofuels are causing hunger in Africa and Austria is hanging on to its tax freedom.

Can you remain an icon when entering murky cut and thrust world of day to day politics? In Myanmar, also known as Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi is finding out that you probably can`t.

Once a political prisoner, she is now working alongside her former jailers as a member of Myanmar`s evolving parliament. Inevitably this means that political calculation is denting her idealism and the need to compromise is watering down her famous points of principle.

But how far can she afford to go? Former supporters of Suu Kyi have become very disillusioned with what they see as her failure to take a stand against social injustice, environmental degradation, military influence and ethnic violence.

“It is amazing how much people`s views of her have changed in less than 12 months since she entered active politics,” says our South-East Asia Tony Cheng.

EPA/NYEIN CHAN NAING

A protester confronts Aung San Suu Kyi at a copper mine in Monywa

Cheng describes how, when she appeared to argue in favour of business interests with China rather than the health and ecological concerns of the local population living near a controversial open-pit copper mine, she was shouted down by a young female protester.

The mining project is a joint venture between a big Chinese arms manufacturer and a holding company for the Burmese military. So The Lady was being heckled for being too close to the regime. It must have been a shock.

But the anger is understandable - state police had been accused of dispersing protesters by using incendiary shells of the chemical agent white phosphorus. Why was she taking their side?

But Cheng is not shocked: “You have to remember that until 1987 she was very much an establishment figure. She comes from a very privileged background. She is not one of the people.”

Suu Kyi has argued that her country can`t afford to offend its powerful neighbours in China because Myanmar`s development depends on Chinese investment. That argument is interesting on its own right, says Cheng, because when she was under house arrest she was thought to be vehemently against Chinese influence in Myanmar.

“She has shown that she is pragmatic,” says Cheng.

Pragmatism is one thing, but as a Nobel Peace Laureat many feel that she has a duty to speak out against the anti-Muslim violence that has swept Mynamar`s Rakhine state and beyond. It is estimated that about 70,000 people have lost their homes in the violence so far and yet, despite vague pronouncements that she is "against ethnic violence of any kind", Suu Kyi has been relatively quiet on the matter.

“You do have to take a stance on these issues,” says Cheng, “particularly as the violence spreads of Rakhine State and into the rest of Myanmar. SOAS University of London researcher Guy Horton has gone further, telling The Week magazine that: "Her evasiveness on one of the greatest human rights tragedies in the world today has lost her the commodity she has always had in abundance - her moral authority."

The world is “watching very carefully to see how she reacts to the violence,” says Cheng.

Land Grabs, Biofuels and Development Subsidies

Also on today’s show, we looked at the dark side of the biofuel industry. Although it`s credentials as a green fuel have been largely discredited, a great deal of public money is invested into biofuel plantations in the Third World and according to Yvan Maillard Ardenti of the NGO Brot Für Alle this is having devastating consequences.

Brot für Alle

The researcher has made several trips to Sierra Leone, one of the poorest countries in the world, where a Swiss biofuel company has bought 57,000 hectares of land in order to grow sugar cane for ethanol.

“Local communities have lost their land,” says Ardenti. “They have less land to produce food and in one region we have noticed that the food security of the villagers in no longer secured.” He is also concerned that the irrigation of the biofuel plantation, which diverts a quarter of the flow of the local river, has impacted villagers' access to water.

Although Ardenti calls it a “land grab”, the Swiss biofuels company bought the land legally from three local chiefs. Yet the Brot Für Alle researcher argues that “It`s immoral that three chiefs can decide the future of 13,000 people and there was no free, informed consent of the local population.”

Ardenti says the villagers were promised benefits and not told about the negative impacts. He adds that 52% of the funds for the biofuel company come from development banks. Brot Für Alle want this practice to stop.

Also in the show today: Kerry in Seoul

The American Secretary of State John Kerry is in the South Korean capital as tensions mount over a possible North Korea missile test. How is his visit going to affect the situation?

We spoke to our security analyst Paul Beaver who had some reassuring news:

"The reality is that it is highly unlikely that North Korea has the capability to launch a missile of any size with a nuclear warhead that would work."

Pakistan

I spoke to prize-winning journalist Jason Burke, the author of the brilliant 9/11 Wars about the upcoming elections in Pakistan. In a month's time people in Pakistan will be going to the polls in a vote which will mark the first democratic transfer of power in the country's history.

Who are the main players, what are the issues and why are politicians being forced to pray in public?

EU & Bank Secrecy

European Union Finance Ministers are starting a two day meeting in Dublin and will be talking about tax evasion and bank secrecy. What are the pressures on Austria to change its ways now that Luxembourg has said it will start sharing information?

FM4 Reality Check

Monday to Friday from 12.00 to 14.00, and after the show via Podcast or fm4.orf.at/realitycheck.