Myanmar’s Suu Kyi visits Rohingya enclave
Those who have fled are welcome back, says leader
MYANMAR’S leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived on her first visit to conflictbattered northern Rakhine State yesterday – an unannounced trip to an area that has seen most of its Rohingya Muslim population forced out by an army campaign.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate who leads Myanmar’s pro-democracy party, has been hammered by the international community for failing to use her moral power to speak up in defence of the Rohingya.
Some 600 000 of the stateless minority have fled to Bangladesh since late August carrying accounts of murder, rape and arson at the hands of Myanmar’s powerful army, after militants’ raids sparked a ferocious military retaliation.
The UN says that crackdown is likely tantamount to ethnic cleansing, while pressure has mounted on Myanmar to provide security for the Rohingya and allow people to return home.
In addition to the state capital city of Sittwe, Suu Kyi is also visiting two of the epicentres of the violence, Maungdaw and Buthidaung, as part of the “one-day trip”.
It was not clear if Suu Kyi would visit some of the hundreds of Rohingya villages torched by the army – allegedly aided by ethnic Rakhine Buddhist locals.
But “The Lady” – as she in known – did meet with Rohingya in Maungdaw, according to local media, a first for a leader keen to convince observers inside the country and abroad that the crisis has abated and that reconstruction of Rakhine can begin.
The Rohingya who remain in northern Rakhine are living in fear, surrounded by hostile neighbours who refuse to let them farm or move freely.
Yesterday, 2 500 Rohingya arrived by land at the Bangladesh border, a sign hunger and fear is still driving people from their homes.
“The army didn’t attack us but made our life very difficult,” said Mohammad Zafar, 35, from a village in Buthidaung, at the Bangladesh border.
“We were not paid for any work and couldn’t go to markets. How long is it possible to live like that?”
Suu Kyi is head of a committee charged with rebuilding Rakhine.
She was joined yesterday by businessman Zaw Zaw, one of a host of military “cronies” who thrived under junta rule and are now taking prominent roles in rebuilding the battered region. She says the Rohingya who have fled are now welcome back, if they meet contested “verification” criteria for re-entry to Myanmar.
The Rohingya are loathed in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, where they are denied citizenship and denigrated as illegal “Bengali” immigrants.
Their legal status is at the crux of communal tensions, with ethnic Rakhine Buddhists adamant that Rohingya are foreign interlopers.
A Rohingya resident who has remained in Maungdaw town appealed to Suu Kyi to reconsider foisting a controversial national verification card (NVC) on the minority.
The card grants them limited rights of residence in Myanmar, but does not recognise them as an ethnic group with citizenship.
The Rohingya say it is a bureaucratic attempt to erase their identity and force a shaky legal status onto them in a region where many claim generations of ancestry.
“We cannot do anything with this NVC card, so we do not want to receive it,” the resident said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“We are not Bengalis from Bangladesh, we are Rohingya living here for generations.” — AFP