Action at last

THE biggest and most ruthless campaign of ethnic cleansing the world has seen in years continues unabated in Burma. Since August 25, more than 600 000 members of the Rohingya community have been driven across the border to Bangladesh by the Burmese military, which has systematically torched their homes and killed those who resisted.

The UN says it expects most of the 500 000 remaining Rohingya in the Rakhine state to cross the border in the coming weeks; the military has pushed many of them into camps, to which aid groups and journalists are denied access.

This atrocity is being perpetrated against a despised minority: the Rohingya are Muslims who are regarded by Burma’s Buddhist majority as foreign interlopers, even though they have lived in the country for generations.

Virtually no one in Burma, also known as Myanmar, has come to the victims’ defence – not even Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who controls the civilian government, if not the generals.

A senior UN official, Yanghee Lee, pointed out last week that the country’s revered leader might be the only one who could counter the popular “hatred and hostility” against the Rohingya if she were to “reach out to the people and say, ‘Hey, let’s show some humanity’.” But Aung San Suu Kyi has remained silent.

After weeks of hesitation, the US has finally begun to act against this staggering crime. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on October 18 that “the world can’t just stand idly by and be witness to the atrocities”, adding that the military leadership would be held accountable.

A few days later, the State Department followed up by pulling the waiver allowing current and former Burmese military officials to travel to the US, and said military units involved would be deemed ineligible for US aid.

It called on the government to “facilitate the safe and voluntary return of those who have fled” and “address the root causes of systematic discrimination against the Rohingya”.