Tillerson pleads with Suu Kyi

AS UN ACCESS REQUEST REFUSED: CALLS ON HER GOVERNMENT TO STOP THE RIGHTS ABUSES

Some world leaders and activists allege there is a campaign of ‘ethnic cleansing’ against the Rohingya.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Myanmar leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi yesterday to urge her government to address “deeply troubling allegations of human rights abuses and violations”.

More than 400 000 members of Myanmar’s Rohingya minority have fled fighting in Rakhine state amid what rights activists and some world leaders have alleged is a military-led campaign of “ethnic cleansing”.

The US has previously expressed concern about the crisis, but has been cautious about blaming Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi directly for the killings and expulsions, and yesterday’s call was Tillerson’s first.

“The secretary welcomed the Burmese government’s commitment to end the violence in Rakhine State and to allow those displaced by the violence to return home,” State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

“He also urged the Burmese government and military to facilitate humanitarian aid for displaced people in the affected areas, and to address deeply troubling allegations of human rights abuses and violations.”

This was after UN human rights investigators said yesterday they needed “full and unfettered” access to Myanmar to investigate the grave and ongoing crisis, but the government renewed its rejection of the probe.

The head of the UN-backed fact-finding mission, Marzuki Darusman, told the Human Rights Council: “There is a grave humanitarian crisis under way.”

Myanmar’s civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has denounced the UN probe set up in March as unhelpful and vowed her government would not cooperate with it.

But earlier yesterday she delivered a nationally televised address on the Rohingya crisis, appealing for outside observers to visit Myanmar and see the situation for themselves, in a speech aimed at appeasing the international community.

However, just hours after that, Myanmar’s UN ambassador, Htin Lynn, reasserted his government’s “position of disassociating herself from the resolution” that set up the fact-finding mission. “We continue to believe that instituting such a mission is not a helpful course of action in solving the already-intricate Rakhine issue.” –