‘Message got through’
> Pope defends his Myanmar diplomacy
VATICAN CITY: Pope Francis on Saturday defended his strategy of avoiding the term “Rohingya” in Myanmar, saying he believed he got his message across to both the civilian and military leadership without shutting down dialogue.
Speaking to reporters aboard the plane returning to Rome from Bangladesh, he also indicated he had been firm with Myanmar’s military leaders in private meetings about the need for them to respect Rohingya rights.
He also disclosed that he cried when he met a group of Rohingya refugees on Friday in Bangladesh, where he defended their rights by name in an emotional meeting.
“For me, the most important thing is that the message gets through, to try to say things one step at a time and listen to the responses.
“I knew that if in the official speeches I would have used that word, they would have closed the door in our faces. But (in public) I described situations, rights, said that no one should be excluded, (the right to) citizenship, in order to allow myself to go further in the private meetings,” he said.
Francis did not use the word Rohingya in public while on the first leg of the trip in Myanmar.
Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an ethnic group.
Local Roman Catholic Church authorities had advised him not to say it because it could spark a backlash against Christians and other minorities.
The pope met Myanmar’s military leaders privately last Monday, shortly after his arrival in Yangon, after the military pointedly asked at the last minute to push their meeting forward.
“It was a good conversation and the truth was non-negotiable,” he said of the meeting.
Some 625,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh after an army crackdown in response to militant attacks on Aug 25. Refugees have said scores of villages were razed.
Asked if he used the word Rohingya during the private military meeting, the pope said: “I used words in order to arrive at the message and when I saw that the message had arrived, I dared to say everything that I wanted say”.
He then gave a mischievous grin and ended his answer with the Latin phrase “intelligenti pauca”, meaning “few words are enough for those who understand”, hinting that he had used the word the military officers detest while in their presence. – Reuters