A SPEECH THAT UNDERMINES LAST EXCUSE FOR SUU KYI’S SILENCE
Now we know that Myanmar’s de facto leader is incriminated in the persecution of Rohingya
Until yesterday it had been rumoured that Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to address allegations of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya was due to some kind of frailty or because she was being silenced by Myanmar’s powerful generals.
Such rumours can now be discounted.
The leader, who yesterday gave an address to diplomats, may have been using words written by, or in conjunction with, military officials but the imperious tone with which she insisted that the country has other problems to deal with was all hers.
Not that she used the word “Rohingya”. As has been her policy, she stuck firmly to the name “Muslims” when referring to the mainly stateless minority who are widely seen in Myanmar as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
It was a view Ms Suu Kyi reinforced in her speech when she referred to those Rohingya villagers who had not yet fled the violence as “Muslims who’ve integrated successfully”.
Why, she wanted to know, had “the great majority” of Rakhine state’s Muslim population not left? It was an odd interpretation of a situation that has led to half a million Rohingya – out of a total of about 1.1 million – flee to Bangladesh since military clearances began last October.
More than 420,000 of these have fled since the latest military operations began at the end of last month.
After all, Ms Suu Kyi pointed out, more than 50 per cent of Muslim villages in Rakhine remain intact – as if the mass destruction of all the others was not an important issue.
And in one of the more remarkable examples of disingenuity in a speech that ranged between fudging key issues to blatant misinformation, the leader said she and the government could not understand why hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had fled their homes.
“We want to find out why this exodus is happening,” she said.
As the BBC’s former Myanmar correspondent Jonah Fisher responded on Twitter: “Does she not have a television?”
In her speech, Ms Suu Kyi said the government felt “deeply for the suffering of all the people who have been caught up in the conflict”, going on to name several small recognised ethnic minority populations in Rakhine, but not once referring to the stateless Rohingya who have borne the brunt of the violence.
Ms Suu Kyi cannot condemn the military on this issue and keep her position as de facto head of the country. The generals are far too powerful.
But in refusing to acknowledge what is happening and using her position to promote the idea that abuses are not being perpetrated or will not be punished, she is contradicting the claim that “our government has emerged as a body committed to human rights”.
Her insistence that “action will be taken against those who go against the law of the land and violate human rights” should not be taken as a reassurance.
Not only does the military have constitutionally enshrined impunity within Myanmar, Ms Suu Kyi’s government has refused to co-operate with a UN investigation into allegations that security forces committed crimes against humanity during clearance operations last year.
Meanwhile, Myanmar’s own investigations into alleged abuses have been derided by international groups as biased.
Those who still hope that Ms Suu Kyi, a former pro-democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is going to intervene in a meaningful fashion may want to give up now.
Comparing running the country with looking after one’s health, she said there were other issues to be addressed besides the violence in Rakhine.
“We cannot just concentrate on a few,” she said.
Only a few minutes of the 30-minute speech directly addressed what is happening in Rakhine state.
It is true that civilians in other parts of the country are also facing displacement and violence because of continuing conflicts and that they are often ignored, but the scale of what is going on in Rakhine should make it a priority.
Ms Suu Kyi’s claim that refugees would be able to return home after a verification process, meanwhile, avoided the key point that most Rohingya will find it impossible to provide documents or evidence, given that Myanmar has made it almost impossible for them to obtain documents.
As for her assertion that all people in Rakhine have access to health care and education “without discrimination”, such words rub salt into a terrible wound.
For years before the current crisis claimed lives, countless Rohingya died because of restrictions on their movements that stop them obtaining proper medical care.
It was unclear who Ms Suu Kyi was trying to convince – the diplomats or herself.
It should also be noted that, although the speech in English was televised, the leader is yet to speak directly to the people of Myanmar about the crisis.
Myanmar people took to social media to express dismay that her words were in a language that many could not understand.
As for what happens next, that is as unclear as ever.
Ms Suu Kyi said in her speech that there have been “no armed clashes and no clearance operations” since September 5.
It may be that operations have been scaled back, but photographs taken from Bangladesh in recent days show smoke still rising over Rakhine and the flood of people into Bangladesh continues.
Aung San Suu Kyi said her government could not understand why hundreds of thousands of Rohingya had fled