Pope risks backlash on Myanmar visit
MYANMAR: Pope Francis started a tense visit to Myanmar yesterday after one of his own cardinals pleaded with him to restrain his speech for fear of provoking Buddhist hostility towards the country’s Catholic minority.
The pope’s three-day visit is a pointed response to the flight of 620,000 Muslim Rohingya from western Myanmar to Bangladesh after an army operation that has been condemned by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing. He has spoken in Rome of ‘‘the persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters’’.
Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, the Archbishop of Yangon, has openly asked the pope not to use the word Rohingya, which is seen as conferring statehood.
The term is rejected by the Myanmar government and provokes anger among many Burmese, who regard them as illegal ‘‘Bengali’’ immigrants.
‘‘We have asked him at least to refrain from using the word Rohingya because this word is very much contested and not acceptable by the military, nor the government, nor the people in Myanmar,’’ Bo said in an interview this month.
The pope now faces a dilemma; he must either capitulate to censorship, or risk a backlash against Catholics in a country where most people support the expulsion of the Rohingya. Myanmar has 660,000 Catholics, making up 1 per cent of the population. Bangladesh, where he will travel next, has only 375,000.
His visit is clearly intended to put moral pressure on the Myanmar government and its de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.
In August, he told a crowd of 30,000 in St Peter’s Square in Rome: ‘‘Sad news has reached us of the persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters, a religious minority.
‘‘I would like to express my full closeness to them and let all of us ask the Lord to save them and to raise up men and women of goodwill to help them, who shall give them their full rights.
‘‘I ask you to be with me in prayer so that, for these peoples, my presence is a sign of affinity and hope.’’
Francis will meet Suu Kyi, who has been condemned internationally for her support of the violent retaliation by Myanmar soldiers, police and civilian vigilantes after small-scale attacks by Rohingya militants.
Refugees in Bangladesh have described Burmese soldiers burning villages and killing and raping their occupants. The head of the UN Human Rights Commission said the army’s actions were ‘‘a textbook example of ethnic cleansing’’, and international lawyers and human rights groups have suggested that they may meet the definition of genocide.
Suu Kyi’s supporters insist that she is trying to deal with the crisis without provoking the country’s powerful generals, over whom she does not have direct control.
Last week Rex Tillerson, the US Secretary of State, became the latest foreign statesman to condemn Myanmar, referring to the expulsion of the Rohingya as ethnic cleansing.
Myanmar and Bangladesh have signed a deal allowing the Rohingya refugees to return to their homes, but the standard of documentation required - and the fear among those expelled - make it unlikely that more than a few will go back.
The pope will also meet Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander of the Myanmar armed forces, who controls the defence and border ministries.
Catholics waved Vatican and Myanmar flags as the pope’s convoy drove into Yangon, where he was met by nuns and children in traditional dress. Today he will celebrate an open-air mass in a sports stadium. – The Times