Sean Turnell with Aung San Suu Kyi.Credit:
An Unlikely Prisoner is not a comedy. Far from it. But Turnell has teased out wry and darkly humorous moments from a bleak situation,and with his humour helps dissect and make digestible the junta’s horrors.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s favourite economist,Turnell was in COVID quarantine in a Yangon hotel when the armed forces seized power in February 2021. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy was due to start its second term after another electoral landslide,but Senior General Min Aung Hlaing had other ideas and rounded up the leadership before unleashing a reign of terror that led to civil war. As an adviser to Suu Kyi’s government,Turnell was in the goons’ sights in the early days after the coup.
He charts the journey from his arrest at the hotel,through the accusations of espionage,his months in isolation,remand in the notorious Insein prison,a sham trial in the capital Naypyidaw,andswift return to Sydney after a surprise amnesty.
“I was not quite the cliche of the bumbling academic,” he writes,admitting,“but I fancy I wasn’t far from it.” No Jason Bourne,he would joke with wife and fellow economics lecturer Dr Ha Vu that rather than being The Asset,he was The Liability.
Sean Turnell’s memoir An Unlikely Prisoner.Credit:
The absurdity of the case against him becomes clear when he is accused of illegally possessing a classified memo – of which he was the author. Pointing out this fact early is of no help:his own document is entered into evidence against him at trial,along with others that had been clearly and clumsily tampered with while he was incarcerated.
The memo in question concerned punishments the government might mete out towards those involved in the genocide against the Rohingya minority of north-west Myanmar. Suu Kyi and her government werecriticised for failing to condemn the atrocities,andtop generals involved benefited from the coup.