Thompson’s plea to Suu Kyi: end your silence
Actress urges Burmese leader to restore peace amid UN warning that the worst is yet to come
‘You have been silenced for so many years … How I would like to hear you speak up to defend all innocent civilians’
James Rothwell
Gordon Rayner
EMMA THOMPSON, the award-winning British actress, has urged Aung San Suu Kyi to restore peace to Burma after the UN said it feared the worst was yet to come in the Rohingya crisis.
In a letter addressed directly to the Burmese leader, and seen by The Daily Telegraph, Ms Thompson wrote: “Few people have inspired me in my life the way you do … but I cannot stay silent when women and children suffer.”
Boris Johnson also called on Ms Suu Kyi, the Burmese leader, yesterday to use her “moral capital” to end the persecution of her country’s Muslim minority, which he described as an “abomination”.
The Foreign Secretary described events in Burma as a “tragedy” involving “gross abuses of human rights”.
Ms Thompson, 58, told yesterday how she was “overjoyed” when Ms Suu Kyi came to power in 2015 after spending two decades under house arrest, and was dazzled by her “energy and verve” when the pair met in 2011.
“Since then I never stopped following Myanmar’s progress,” she wrote, using another name for Burma. “You shed light on your beautiful country … the hope I felt was so big and yet it was nothing in comparison to the hope of the millions of people who placed their future in your hands.”
However, Ms Thompson went on to say she felt deeply anguished by reports of a brutal crackdown by the Burmese army, which has forced around 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee into neighbouring Bangladesh. “I am devastated by the suffering of those affected, and extremely worried that the military build-up and the response by Myanmar security forces will only lead to more suffering and to an ever deteriorating humanitarian crisis,” she wrote.
“You have been silenced for so many years … How much I would like to hear you speak up to defend all innocent civilians suffering in your country.”
She added: “You have always stood firm in the defence of peace and democracy, please make this a reality now for all people of Rakhine, and especially the Rohingya. We believed in you then and we believe in you now.”
Mr Johnson, speaking at a press conference in London alongside Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State, said of Ms Suu Kyi: “Let’s be clear, she led Burma after a period of decades of repression by a military junta and I yield to no one in my admiration of what she stood for and the way she fought for democracy. But I think it’s now vital for her to use that moral capital and that authority to make the point about the suffering of the people of Rakhine.
“Nobody wants to see a return to military rule in Burma, nobody wants to see a return of the generals.
“But it is vital for her now to make clear that this is an abomination and that those people will be allowed back to Burma and that preparation is being made and that the abuse of their human rights and the hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of killings will stop.”
It came as the UN issued an urgent appeal for help in protecting refugees who have fled to Bangladesh, and warned that the numbers were likely to rise.
“We urge the international community to step up humanitarian support and come up with help,” said Mohammed Abdiker, director of operations for the UN’S International Organisation for Migration, adding that the need was “massive”.
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretarygeneral, has urged Burma to end the violence, which he said was best described as ethnic cleansing.
But Burma’s Buddhist-majority government rejects this claim, and insists it is targeting “terrorists”.
Amnesty International has also described the violence as ethnic cleansing and said yesterday it had obtained evidence that Burmese security forces and vigilante mobs were burning down entire Rohingya villages and “shooting people at random” as they tried to flee.
The Burmese authorities have denied that security forces or Buddhist civilians set the fires. They blame the insurgents, and say 30,000 non-muslim villagers have also been displaced.
“The horrific situation in Burma is exactly why we need more than just a sticking-plaster approach to helping those fleeing war and persecution,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
Ms Suu Kyi is due to address the nation next Tuesday.