Yousafzai adds her voice to growing protests at plight of Burma’s
A Nobel laureate and Muslim nations in Asia yesterday criticised Burma’s persecution of its Rohingya Muslim minority as thousands in Indonesia and elsewhere staged angry protests against Aung San Suu Kyi and her Government.
At least 87,000 refugees from Burma’s western Rakhine state have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh since violence escalated late last month, according to the United Nations, overwhelming existing camps for the displaced.
Malala Yousafzai, the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize, said her “heart breaks” at the suffering of Rohingya Muslims and urged Burma’s leader, a fellow Nobel laureate, to condemn the violence against the Rohingya minority.
“Over the last several years I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment,” she said in a statement posted on Twitter. “I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting.”
The latest eruption of violence in Rakhine state has killed more than 400 people and triggered an exodus of Rohingya into Bangladesh. It began after insurgents attacked Burmese police and paramilitary posts in what they said was an effort to protect their ethnic minority from persecution by security forces in the majority Buddhist country.
In response, Burma’s military unleashed what it called “clearance operations”. Human Rights Watch says satellite imagery shows 700 buildings were burned in the Rohingya Muslim village of Chein Khar Li, just one of 17 locations in Rakhine state where the rights group has documented burning of homes and property.
Burma, also known as Myanmar, denies citizenship to Rohingya, who have lived in the country for generations, and the group has frequently faced hostility and violence from the Buddhist majority, often fanned by hardline monks and inflammatory comments from officials.
Reports of killings by security forces and images of lines of people including children and the elderly attempting to cross the swampy border into Bangladesh have sparked anger and battered the reputation of Suu Kyi, previously lionised for her decades of resistance to Burma’s former military rulers.
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Russia’s predominantly Muslim Chechnya to protest what Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov called the “genocide of Muslims” in Burma.
Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has called for an end to violence in Rakhine state and on Monday sent his Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, to Burma where she with met with Suu Kyi and armed forces commander Min Aung Hlaing.
Interviewed by Indonesian TV after the meeting, Marsudi sidestepped questions about domestic pressure in the world’s most populous Muslim nation to sever diplomatic ties with Burma.
She said Burmese security authorities need to immediately stop all violence in Rakhine and allow Indonesia and other Southeast Asian nations to assist with humanitarian aid distribution.
Suu Kyi responded positively to a five-point Indonesian plan to stabilise the situation, Marsudi said.
“God willing, we would be able to directly help the Rohingya refugees,” Marsudi said.
“The priority is the safety of the Rohingya refugees.”
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said it was deeply concerned by reports of growing numbers of deaths and the forced displacement of Rohingya Muslims.