Rohingya crisis tops papal agenda
ROME: The plight of Rohingya Muslims is expected to loom large over Pope Francis’s trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh, as he will visit the country the persecuted minority group is fleeing from and the one in which they are seeking refuge.
Myanmar, from where 620 000 Rohingya have escaped in the past three months, will host Francis from today until Thursday, while neighbouring Bangladesh, which has taken in the refugees, will welcome the pope from Thursday to Saturday.
As a vocal defender of the downtrodden, Francis is under pressure to speak up for the repressed minority, but the local Catholic Church said he should refrain from using the word “Rohingya” to avoid a diplomatic crisis.
UN rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein has said that the Rohingya are victims of a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”, and the leader of the Catholic Church in Bangladesh, Cardinal Patrick D’Rozario, called attacks on them “a threat to humanity”.
But most people in Myanmar see it differently. The army blames violence in western Rakhine state on Muslim insurgents, while the authorities and the public do not consider the impoverished and largely stateless Rohingya citizens, but see them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
In a pre-visit video message, Francis said he “can’t wait to meet” the people of Myanmar, but avoided the word “Rohingya”. He said he was going there to encourage “any effort to build harmony and co-operation to service the common good”.
The pope may be more blunt once on the ground. He deplored “the persecution… of our Rohingya brothers” in August. And last year, he had no fear of causing a spat with Turkey when he called the mass killing of Armenians during World War I “genocide”.
The top representative of the Catholic Church in Myanmar, Cardinal Charles Bo, has said he hoped the papal visit could help “stop the civil war, especially among the ethnic groups with the military”.
Bo, who met Francis in Rome, said the pope would meet General Min Aung Hlaing, the man behind the army crackdown in Rakhine. “Perhaps he could soften his heart – the first step for peace.”
Francis will also have talks with Nobel Peace laureate and Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has faced international criticism for her silence on the Rohingya, and meet Buddhist monks.
In Bangladesh, a majority Muslim country with about 375 000 Catholics, the pope will visit Mother Teresa nuns’ orphanage and meet religious and civilian leaders.