Suu Kyi’s silence betrays promises

WORLD leaders and human rights bodies must condemn Myanmar and take on Aung San Suu Kyi by asking her to contain her military.

Be it the Eelam Tamils, the Yazidi people, Iraqis, and now the Rohingya, the growing list of refugees shows that the world just watches without doing anything worthwhile to rescue and rehabilitate these people and punish the guilty. Why does the West apply different yardsticks? Also it’s unfortunate that while the Rohingya are being persecuted, Suu Kyi appears unmoved. When she was incarcerated, the world stood with her. How can she allow such a development to happen in the first place?

Reliable sources report that in the towns and villages of Rakhine state, they have endured murder, beatings, starvation, disease, rape, and now exile, with their homes being systematically torched behind them.

Unlike past cruelties of Rohingyas, now the world is watching in shame. That shame belongs to the nation of Myanmar, to nationalist monks fuelling violence and hate speech, to the Myanmar military and its brutal policies of ethnic cleansing, and to Suu Kyi. Her silence betrays the hopes she earlier offered for a united Myanmar in which all communities might live together in harmony.

After years of persecution, it is time that Myanmar’s leadership embarked on a path of reconciliation with its minorities. E PEEK Glenwood