United condemnation of brutality in Burma
Nobel laureate appeals to Burma’s civilian leader to condemn ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Rohingya Muslims
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani Nobel peace laureate, and Muslim leaders across Asia have led a global outcry over the Burmese army’s brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority and the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s civilian leader, to stop it.
Nearly 90,000 Rohingya have poured into Bangladesh from Burma over the past 10 days after a military operation in the restive western Rakhine state, which has led to security forces standing accused of the indiscriminate killing of civilians, including beheading and drowning children.
Human rights activists claim there are at least 1,000 casualties.
MALALA YOUSAFZAI, the Pakistani Nobel peace laureate, and Muslim leaders across Asia have led a global outcry over the Burmese army’s brutal crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority and the failure of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s civilian leader, to stop it.
Nearly 90,000 Rohingya have poured into Bangladesh from Burma over the past 10 days after a military operation in the restive western Rakhine state, which has led to security forces standing accused of widespread arson the indiscriminate killing of civilians, including beheading and drowning children.
While the official death toll is 400, human rights activists claim there are at least 1,000 casualties among the Rohingya people – described by some as the world’s most persecuted minority.
The latest violence broke out on Aug 25 after insurgents from the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) attacked Burmese paramilitary posts.
But conflict has raged in Rakhine since October, after a similar ambush on border posts. It has been the worst witnessed in the state in years, with the United Nations reporting that the army may have committed ethnic cleansing.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the formerly feted political prisoner of Burma’s junta, who secured a landslide in the November 2015 election, has come under increasing criticism over her perceived reluctance to condemn the military’s harsh treatment of Rohingya civilians.
“We hope that [she] can use her remarkable qualities to unite her country, stop the violence, and end the prejudice that afflicts Muslims and others there,” said a Downing Street spokesman yesterday.
But she has made no comment since the latest fighting broke out, a silence that Miss Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban when she was just 15, has urged Ms Suu Kyi to break.
“Stop the violence. Today we have seen pictures of small children killed by Burma’s security forces,” said Miss Yousafzai in a statement on Twitter.
“Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same. The world is waiting and the Rohingya Muslims are waiting,” she added.
Human rights activists on the Burma-bangladesh border have described horrific conditions as refugees flee in fear of their lives.
“There are enormous numbers of people arriving. The Burmese military is basically clearing out all of the Rohingya Muslim villages in northern Rakhine state,” said Matthew Smith, the chief executive of Fortify Rights, a human rights organisation. “People are desperately in need of shelter, food, clothing. There are a lot of people sleeping under the rain, in the mud.”
Mr Smith’s organisation has documented allegations of heinous crimes against entire families. “State security forces have been killing men, women and children,” he said. “They have been slitting throats, there have been beheadings. Soldiers have opened fire on groups of people and then set the bodies on fire, including children.”
Muslim countries in south-east Asia are incensed at mounting reports of atrocities. The Maldives said yesterday that it would sever all trade ties with Burma, while Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, called for international action
to “prevent further ethnic cleansing”. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it was “deeply concerned”, while Joko Widodo, the president of Indonesia, said “this humanitarian crisis has to stop immediately”.
♦ A humanitarian organisation that has saved the lives of 40,000 migrants in the Mediterranean has suspended its operations, citing security concerns and
‘State security forces are killing men, women and children’
“increasing instability” off the coast of Libya. The Malta-based Migrant Offshore Aid Station said it did not want to be involved in Libya’s interception of migrant boats leaving its coast. It will instead redeploy its flagship to southeast Asia to help Rohingya refugees fleeing from Burma to Bangladesh.
The elections in Burma in 2015, after decades of military rule, marked a personal triumph for the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had become an internationally recognised champion of freedom and human rights. Today she is the power behind the new government and, while constitutionally barred from holding the position of president, is considered the de facto leader of the country with the title state counsellor of Myanmar (the official name for Burma).
Armed with her moral and political authority, she is, then, best placed to appeal to her fellow countrymen and women to end the appalling slaughter taking place in the west of Burma against the Muslim Rohingya minority. Yet Miss Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace prize in 1991, has chosen to remain silent. Partly this is explained by the fact that Muslim militants have been conducting a terrorist campaign. Over the past few weeks, 71 people, including 59 insurgents, have been killed in a series of attacks on police and army positions. The jihadists claim they are responding to atrocities against the Rohingyas in Rakhine province. But matters are complicated in a region of sometimes bewildering ethnic complexity.
Muslims from eastern Bengal and Buddhist Rakhines have contested the territory for centuries and efforts to include this part of Burma in what became Eastern Pakistan in 1947 were bitterly fought. Moreover, as has been seen elsewhere, Islamist insurgencies do not need perceived injustices to fuel them.
Burma’s democracy is new and the country’s divisions will only be repaired when it becomes an inclusive, multicultural society with equal rights for all. Most Rohingyas are denied citizenship and political power resides with the Bamars, the largest ethnic group. Christian Kachins, Konyak Nagas and animist Karens to the south have all fought insurgencies at some point since Burma’s independence. Hundreds of thousands of people from these communities live in refugee camps in Thailand and other countries.
The Rohingyas have faced official persecution before, though rarely on this scale; and whatever the historic enmities there is no justification for what is tantamount to genocide, any more than tribal animosity legitimised the murder of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda. If Miss Suu Kyi is to live up to her hard-won worldwide reputation as a defender of the oppressed then she must speak out.