Suu Kyi defends handling of Rohingya crisis
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s tarnished Nobel laureate, yesterday defended the handling of the Rohingya crisis, saying the speed of the minority’s repatriation is up to Bangladesh.
Myanmar’s civilian leader said her nation was ready for returning refugees. But rights groups criticised her for trying to dodge blame for ethnic cleansing.
Ms Suu Kyi blamed Dhaka for the delay in repatriating more than 700,000 Rohingya who fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar amid a state-led campaign of terror against the mostly Muslim minority.
“It’s very difficult for us to put a time frame on it because we have to work with Bangladesh,” she said.
“The returnees have to be sent back by Bangladesh. We can only welcome them at the border,” Ms Suu Kyi said in a rare address to an international audience in Singapore, where she spoke on Myanmar’s democratic transition.
“Bangladesh would also have to decide how quickly they want the process to be completed,” she said.
Bangladeshi officials say it is the intransigence of Myanmar’s government that is leaving the Rohingya in limbo.
The two countries signed a memorandum process on repatriation in November but have failed to make progress.
“We are always requesting the Myanmar side to expedite the process,” a Bangladeshi official said on Thursday ahead of Ms Suu Kyi’s latest comments.
But Ms Suu Kyi says Rakhine state is at risk of terrorism.
“The danger of terrorist activities, which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine remains real and present today,” she said.
The latest campaign against the Rohingya – which the US and UN have called ethnic cleansing – began last August after a series of insurgent attacks on police posts.
Myanmar opposes international calls for justice and, yesterday, Ms Suu Kyi portrayed the events as part of the South-East Asian country’s growing pains on the road to democracy.
“We who are living through the transition in Myanmar view it differently from those who observe it from the outside, and who will remain untouched from its outcome,” she said.
She avoided mentioning the Rohingya by name – Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the predominantly Muslim group as one of the its 135 official ethnic groups – but said: “Unless these security challenges are addressed, the risk of communal violence would remain.”
But observers said it was contingent upon Myanmar to investigate its own security forces as well as to create a conducive environment for the safe return of the Rohingya.
“Until the Myanmar government ensures accountability for the crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya and dismantles the system of discrimination and segregation that made them so vulnerable in the first place, they are not safe to return,” said Saad Hammadi, Amnesty International’s South Asia regional campaigner.
Experience suggests that the Myanmar government remains unwilling to grant Rohingya those protections, said Human Rights Watch researcher Richard Weir.
“It is ready to bring people home but to conditions under which they previously lived, including systematic denial of their basic rights. None of that has changed.”
Continuing persecution in Rakhine state is corroborated by newly fleeing Rohingya refugees – 11,000 of whom have arrived in Bangladesh this year. “They’ll tell you the situation is bad and getting worse,” Mr Weir said.
“And no one has access on the other side to assess that.”
On Monday, Human Rights Watch published a report documenting the torture by Myanmar authorities of six Rohingya who returned to Rakhine.
In that context, Ms Suu Kyi’s comments were part of a Myanmar government campaign of “outrageous duplicity”, Mr Weir said.