Pope walks Rohingya tightrope in Myanmar
POPE Francis arrived in mainly Buddhist Myanmar yesterday on a highly sensitive visit to a country facing sharp global criticism for the alleged ethnic cleansing of its Rohingya Muslim minority.
The 80-year-old pontiff, the first to travel to Myanmar, was welcomed by children from different minority groups, who gave him flowers and received a papal embrace in return.
Nuns in white habits were among the devotees to have travelled from across the country in his honour, waving flags as his motorcade swept by the golden Shwedagon Pagoda to the archbishop’s residence in downtown Yangon, where the pope was going to stay last night.
“I saw the pope … I was so pleased, I cried!” Christina Aye Aye Sein, 48, said after the pope’s convoy passed.
“His face looked very lovely and sweet … He is coming here for peace.”
But the joyful scenes stood in stark contrast to the gravity of the main issue that frames his trip.
Myanmar’s military stands accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya Muslims. More than 620 000 have fled a crackdown in northern Rakhine state for neighbouring Bangladesh over the past three months.
The pope’s four-day visit intensifies pressure on Myanmar over its treatment of the stateless minority, a group he has called his “brothers and sisters” in repeated entreaties to ease their plight.
His speeches will be scrutinised by Buddhist hardliners for any mention of the word “Rohingya”, an incendiary term in a country where the Muslim group are reviled and labelled “Bengalis” – alleged illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
Francis will meet civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace prize winner whose lustre has faded because of her failure to speak up publicly for the Rohingya. He will also hold talks with army chief Min Aung Hlaing – a meeting between a religious leader who has championed the rights of refugees, and the man accused of overseeing the brutal campaign to drive out the Rohingya.
His visit is a historic chance for Myanmar’s Catholic flock to get close to the head of their church.
Myanmar’s estimated 700 000 Catholics make up just over 1% of the country’s 51 million people.
About 200 000 Catholics are pouring into Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, by plane, train and car ahead of a huge open-air mass tomorrow. — AFP