A10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONALMONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2020
Much of the concern stems from
the conflict’s potential to draw in
regional powers like Russia, Tur-
key and Iran. Turkey has been
openly backing Azerbaijan, while
Russia has a mutual defense
treaty with Armenia, though Mos-
cow says it will take effect only if
the violence spreads to recog-
nized Armenian territory. Iran
has said stray Azerbaijani ord-
nance has fallen on its side of a
border with Nagorno-Karabakh.
On Sunday, Turkey’s president,
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, congratu-
lated Azerbaijan for capturing the
hilltop town.nia along switchbacks over a
mountain pass. A secondary road
has also come under attack.
Armenian officials on Sunday
also released photographs of fresh
destruction in Stepanakert, show-
ing shattered windows, collapsed
roofs and the tail fin of a rocket
that apparently caused the dam-
age. Since fighting began on Sept.
27, both sides have shelled civilian
areas, and at least 1,000 people, in-
cluding civilians, have been killed.
Fighting has continued despite
repeated attempts by Russia,
France and the United States to
help reach a lasting cease-fire.TVER, Russia — The president
of Azerbaijan claimed on Sunday
that his forces had captured a
strategically important hilltop
town in Nagorno-Karabakh,
which, if confirmed, would greatly
complicate Armenia’s defense of
the separatist region.
The town, known as Shusha to
Azerbaijanis and Shushi to Arme-
nians, sits at a commanding
height overlooking several moun-
tain valleys and Nagorno-Kara-
bakh’s capital, Stepanakert, and it
is considered a linchpin to military
control of the region.
The town’s capture would also
indicate that Azerbaijan had over-
run a main road connecting Arme-
nia and Nagorno-Karabakh,
which is internationally recog-
nized as part of Azerbaijan but is
home to ethnic Armenians.
“We have won this victory on
the battlefield, not at the negotiat-
ing table,” the Azerbaijani presi-
dent, Ilham Aliyev, said on Sun-
day. “I have said many times that,
despite all the statements, there
are military solutions to this con-
flict.”
Officials in Armenia and Nagor-
no-Karabakh denied that the townhad been captured and said that
fierce fighting continued.
Perched high in the mountains
and bordered by sheer cliffs, the
town is a natural fortress and was
also a military prize in the war in
Nagorno-Karabakh that began in
the late 1980s. Over the following
years, Armenia made a series of
territorial gains, driving nearly a
million Azerbaijanis from their
homes. The conflict ended in 1994
with a cease-fire but no settle-
ment.
“Despite the fact that there is a
lot of destruction in the city, the
fortified city resists the attacks ofthe enemy,” the separatist govern-
ment in Nagorno-Karabakh said
in a statement released on Sun-
day.
Still, the fact that fighting has
reached the main road connecting
Armenia with the ethnic Arme-
nian towns and cities in Nagorno-
Karabakh bodes ill for the Arme-
nian side. The important route is
called the Lachin Corridor.
The road, paved two decades
ago with contributions from the
Armenian diaspora in Southern
California, is critical to Nagorno-
Karabakh’s defense, allowing mil-
itary supplies to come from Arme-Armenia Disputes Azerbaijan’s Claim of Seizing Key Town in Nagorno-Karabakh
By ANDREW E. KRAMERLining up for hours on dusty
city streets and country dirt lanes,
voters in Myanmar turned out en
masse on Sunday in elections that
were expected to leave the gov-
erning party of Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi as the biggest force in the
country’s Parliament.
The strong turnout, in only the
second truly contested elections
the country has held in decades,
underscored the voters’ commit-
ment to Myanmar’s nascent de-
mocracy, which remains in the
shadow of a military dictatorship
that ruled for 50 years.
The elections served as a cru-
cial referendum on a political tran-
sition that is neither orderly nor
ordained.
“I had to vote today because my
vote will count for our country’s
future,” said U Sithu Aung, who
waited for two hours to cast his
ballot in the city of Mandalay. “I
know there is a risk of Covid, but
voting is more important.”
The elections gave voice to a
generation of young, independent
candidates and ethnic minority
politicians, in a country that has
for so long been dominated by two
political players: the National
League for Democracy, the lead-
ing political party, and the mili-
tary, which still maintains com-
mand of much of the government.
On Sunday, 102 parties com-
peted in the elections. Many were
ethnic parties, and others were
from parties founded by those
who had once been close to the
country’s civilian leader, Ms.
Aung San Suu Kyi, only to have
broken with her.
Critics say that the governing
party, despite having been
founded in democratic opposition
to the military, is repeating some
of the sins of its former foe. The
government of Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi, who spent 15 years under
house arrest at the behest of the
military generals, has arrested
scores of students, artists and
farmers, simply for expressing
their political views.
The electoral commission, un-
der the sway of the ruling party,
has censored opposition party
members and disenfranchised
many people who do not belong to
the Bamar ethnic majority.
“People being left out is not a
new thing in Myanmar, sad to say,”
said U Khin Zaw Win, a former po-
litical prisoner who runs a policy
think tank in Yangon, the commer-
cial capital of Myanmar.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s detrac-
tors also accuse the National
League for Democracy of having
devolved into a personality cult
around a 75-year-old leader with
an imperious command over her
party. Overseas, the reputation of
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in
1991, has been battered by her de-
fense of the military in its ethnic
cleansing campaign against Ro-
hingya Muslims.
“The ruling party is very tied to
Aung San Suu Kyi, but we don’t
want heroism,” said Ma Ei Thin-
zar Maung, 26, an ethnic minority
activist who ran for a parliamen-tary seat in Yangon. “During this
democracy era, the state of de-
mocracy in Myanmar has gone
backward.” Ms. Ei Thinzar
Maung, who was imprisoned for
her student activism, lost on Sun-
day to a ruling party candidate.
During elections in 2015, the
National League for Democracy
trounced the military-linked Un-
ion Solidarity and Development
Party. That contest began the era
of power-sharing between a civil-
ian government and the military.
The National League for De-
mocracy remains the country’s
pre-eminent political force, with
broad voter loyalty shaped by the
long years of political impris-
onment endured by its founders.
But the party was not expected
on Sunday to win with quite the
landslide it did five years ago.Back then, having the mantle of
the opposition party was enough
to propel candidates to victory.
This time, there was sniping
about the National League of De-
mocracy’s shortcomings as a gov-
erning party. The pandemic hit
Myanmar late but is now sweep-
ing through a country with one of
the worst health care systems in
the world. Despite the lifting of in-
ternational sanctions imposed be-
cause of human rights concerns,
Myanmar never received an ex-
pected boon in foreign invest-
ment. The coronavirus has
thrashed the economy further.
And for all the voter enthusiasm
on Sunday, more than 1.5 million
people among an electorate of 37
million were excluded from the
polls. Last month, the election
commission canceled the vote formany ethnic minorities living in
conflict zones, citing security con-
cerns. Legal experts pointed out
that the vote should have been
suspended, not canceled outright,
and wondered whether the disen-
franchisement was a deliberate
tactic by the governing party.
“In some ethnic areas, people
are very hostile to the N.L.D. and
support ethnic parties instead,”
said Andrew Ngun Cung Lian, a
constitutional scholar who also
served as an ethnic peace negotia-
tor. “It feels like the N.L.D. took
advantage of the fighting to si-
lence ethnic people.”
In addition to those whose votes
were canceled last month, a mil-
lion or so Rohingya Muslims,
many of whom were pushed out of
the country by ethnic cleansing,
were not able to cast ballots.Ethnic minority groups make
up about one-third of Myanmar’s
population, and they have suf-
fered disproportionately from
persecution by the military: gang
rape, forced labor, village burn-
ings and other crimes docu-
mented by human rights groups.
In Mon State in southeastern
Myanmar, Mi Yin Sa Ning said she
had chosen a Mon ethnic party.
Like many in the state, she was fu-
rious when the government
named a bridge there after Ms.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s father, an in-
dependence icon who is viewed by
some in Mon as a subjugator.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi always
says the words ‘federal democrat-
ic country,’ but her actions only
lead to dictatorship,” Ms. Yin Sa
Ning said.
The Mon Union Party appeared
to have cut into the National
League for Democracy’s domi-
nance in parts of Mon State, ac-
cording to preliminary results re-
leased late on Sunday night.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s treat-
ment of ethnic minorities, particu-
larly her refusal to condemn the
ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya,
has led to international rebukes.
Her reputation as a human rights
icon shattered last year when she
led her country’s defense against
charges of genocide at the Inter-
national Court of Justice.
But at home, where extremist
monks are fanning sectarian
flames, some in the Buddhist
heartland see her instead as a
pawn of oil-rich sheikhs. They
worry that an Islamic wave will
wash over Buddhist-majority
Myanmar, even though only about
5 percent of the country is Muslim.
Perhaps to counter those fears,
the National League for Democra-
cy fielded no Muslim candidates
in 2015. This time, there were only
two. (As of early Monday morn-
ing, one had won his race, against
Ms. Ei Thinzar Maung.)Hannah Beech reported from
Bangkok, and Saw Nang from Yan-
gon, Myanmar.
Voters Throng Polls
In Myanmar Elections
By HANNAH BEECH
and SAW NANGResidents waiting to vote Sunday in Yangon, Myanmar. Over 100 parties competed in the election.
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