Pope begins difficult visit to Myanmar amid outcry over treatment of Rohingya

POPE FRANCIS has arrived on a visit to Myanmar and Bangladesh to encourage their tiny Catholic communities and reach out to some of Asia’s poorest people, but the big question was whether he would utter the word “Rohingya”.

Francis immediately dived into the Rohingya Muslim crisis by meeting Myanmar’s powerful military leader, General Min Aung Hlaing and three officials from the bureau of special operations.

The general is in charge of the security operation in Rakhine state, where a violent military crackdown against the Muslim minority has driven more than 620,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh amid claims of rapes and mass shootings.

Vatican spokesman Greg Burke did not provide details of the private 15-minute meeting at the archbishop’s residence, other than to say: “They spoke of the great responsibility of the authorities of the country in this moment of transition.”

Rohingya in recent months have been subject to what the UN says is a campaign of “textbook ethnic cleansing” by the military in Rakhine.

Myanmar’s local Catholic church has publicly urged Francis to avoid using the term “Rohingya” because it is shunned by many locally as the ethnic group is not a recognised minority in the country.

However, Francis has already prayed for “our Rohingya brothers and sisters”, and any decision to avoid the term could be viewed as a capitulation to the military and a stain on his legacy of standing up for the most oppressed and marginalised.

Mr Burke did not say if Francis used the term in his meeting with the general, which ended with an exchange of gifts: Francis gave him a medallion, while the general gave the pope a harp in the shape of a boat, and an ornate rice bowl.

Upon arrival in Rangoon, the pope was greeted by local Catholic officials and his motorcade passed by thousands of Burma’s Catholics, who lined the roads wearing traditional attire.