In an introductory essay the group's executive director Kenneth Roth condemned the NLD for their timid response to army abuses carried out during the ongoing Kachin conflict. According to Roth, the party “has not pressed the military to curtail, let alone prosecute, war crimes being committed against the ethnic Kachin population as part of continuing counterinsurgency operations in the north…The NLD has been disappointing in its reluctance to look beyond a quest for power to secure the rights of less popular, more marginal ethnic groups”.

Roth also took issue with the way Suu Kyi and the NLD responded after communal violence broke out in Arakan (Rakhine) state last year. “Most dramatically, the NLD has refused to speak out against severe and violent persecution of the Muslim Rohingya in the west, many of whom are stateless as a result of a discriminatory nationality law, despite coming from families who have lived in Burma for generations. Suu Kyi has disappointed an otherwise admiring global audience by failing to stand up for a minority against whom many Burmese harbor deep prejudice.”

Speaking at a conference in Hawaii just last week, Suu Kyi reiterated her “fondness” for Burma's military, following as similar vein as with comments made last year during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. During the interview, Suu Kyi drew criticism from some of her long time international supporters who were shocked that the Nobel Peace Prize winner would express admiration for the army while they were carrying out bloody offensives in Kachin state.

When Suu Kyi' spent years under house arrest the HRW was one of the most vocal international human rights groups demanding her release.