Suu Kyi feels heat over Rohingya
Burmese leader to skip UN meeting as crisis deepens
Burma’s national leader Aung San Suu Kyi, facing outrage over ethnic violence that has forced about 370,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, will not attend the upcoming United Nations General Assembly because of the crisis, her office said yesterday.
The exodus of refugees, sparked by security forces’ fierce response to a series of Rohingya militant attacks, is the biggest problem Suu Kyi has faced since becoming Burma’s leader last year. Critics want her to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize for failing to do more to halt the strife.
In her first address to the UN General Assembly as national leader in September last year, Suu Kyi defended her Government’s efforts to resolve the crisis over treatment of the Muslim minority.
This year, her office said she would not be attending because of the security threats posed by the insurgents and her efforts to restore peace and stability.
“She is trying to control the security situation, to have internal peace and stability, and to prevent the spread of communal conflict,” Zaw Htay, the spokesman for Suu Kyi’s office, said.
International pressure has been growing on Buddhist-majority Burma, also known as Myanmar, to end the violence in the western state of Rakhine that began on August 25 when Rohingya militants attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp. The attacks triggered a sweeping military counter-offensive against the insurgents, who the Government has described as terrorists.
But refugees say the security operation is aimed at pushing Rohingya out of Burma.
They, and rights groups, paint a picture of widespread attacks on Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine State by the security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who have put many Muslim villages to the torch.
But authorities say insurgents have been setting the fires, not the security forces or Buddhist civilians. Nearly 30,000 Buddhist villagers have also been displaced, they say.
Despite worries that a humanitarian crisis is unfolding, Burma has rejected a ceasefire declared by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army insurgents to enable the delivery of aid there, saying it did not negotiate with terrorists.
The Trump Administration has called for protection of civilians, and Bangladesh says all of the refugees will have to go home and it has called for safe zones in Burma to enable them to do so. But China, which competes with the United States for influence in the Southeast Asian nation, said it backed Burma’s efforts to safeguard “development and stability”.
The military, which ruled with an iron fist for almost 50 years until it began a transition to democracy in 2011, retains important political powers and is in full control of security.
While Suu Kyi and her civilian Government have no say over security, critics say she could speak out against the violence and demand respect for the rule of law.
But anti-Rohingya sentiment is common in Burma, where Buddhist
nationalism has surged since the end of military rule.
The UN Security Council was due to meet today behind closed doors for the second time since the latest crisis erupted. Rights groups denounced the 15-member council for not holding a public meeting.
The exodus to Bangladesh shows no sign of slowing, the number of refugees rising to 370,000, according to the latest UN estimate yesterday.
Bangladesh was already home to about 400,000 Rohingyas.
Many refugees are hungry and sick, without shelter or clean water in the middle of the rainy season. The UN said 200,000 children needed urgent support.
UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said on Tuesday that the Rohingya were victims of what “seems a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.