Myanmar rebuffs truce by Rohingya insurgents
YANGON/SHAH PORIR DWIP ISLAND, BANGLADESH Myanmar on Sunday rebuffed a ceasefire declared by Muslim Rohingya insurgents to enable the delivery of aid to thousands of displaced people in the violenceracked state of Rakhine, declaring simply that it did not negotiate with terrorists.
Attacks by militants on police posts and an army base on August 25 prompted a military counter-offensive that triggered an exodus of Rohingya to Bangladesh, adding to the hundreds of thousands already there from previous spasms of conflict.
According to the latest estimate by UN workers in the Cox’s Bazar region of Bangladesh, about 294,000 have arrived in just 15 days.
Thousands of Rohingya remaining in the north-western state of Rakhine have been left without shelter or food, and many are still trying to cross mountains, dense bush and rice fields to reach Bangladesh. The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) declared a month-long unilateral ceasefire, starting on Sunday, so that aid could reach these people.
ARSA does not appear to have been able to put up significant resistance against the military force unleashed in Rakhine state, where thousands of homes have been burned down and dozens of villages destroyed.
ARSA’s declaration drew no formal response from the military or the government of Buddhist-majority Myanmar. However, the spokesman for Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, said on Twitter: “We have no policy to negotiate with terrorists.”