Reacting to the speech by Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s State Counsellor and de facto leader, on September 19 on the crisis in Rakhine State, Amnesty International said she and her government are still burying their heads in the sand.
The human rights body’s reaction came after the Nobel Peace Prize winner made a long awaited address to the nation for the first time since the attacks by Rohingya insurgents on August 25 sparking a military response that has forced to flee more than 410,000 Rohingyas to neighbouring Bangladesh. But she was in denial of the crisis created for Rohingyas. She did not even mention the name Rohingyas. She said the situation has to be examined. A BBC correspondent commented that her speech could have been a script written by the military in Myanmar. The international agencies and human rights groups were highly critical of her. The United Nations has earlier branded the military operation in the Western state of Myanmar as ethnic cleansing. Aung San Suu Kyi did not address that accusation but said her government was committed to the rule of law.
The government of Myanmar should address the entrenched discrimination that has left the Rohingyas trapped in a cycle of abuse and deprivation for decades. Forcing thousands to flee due to the actions of a misguided few is not the way a government should behave. But it is exactly what the military junta in Myanmar are doing.
Why can’t Suu Kyi see the situation on the ground for herself? When even the BBC has shown that entire villages are being burned by Buddhists working secretly at the behest of the police, when numerous refugees speak of the horrors of rape and death inflicted on them by a trigger happy army who are too intent on killing their own people, why then, one may ask, is Suu Kyi silent. Does she not have the power to condemn those who are doing the killings? Why can’t she censure the security forces who are conducting such search and destroy operations?
Clearly, she values her relations with the army too highly to think of the Rohingya — after all, they are not the majority in Burma. Since the Burman, who are Burma’s majority people, are not affected, why should anyone bother? This attitude of Suu Kyi smack of a desperate attempt at appeasement — her words indicate that her chief priority is her relations with the army, and the pogrom is secondary.
This obviously raises questions about the quality of leadership she seeks to bring, but also that the political game in Myanmar is worth the sacrifice of an entire community. The US has dispatched an envoy to Myanmar to express its “grave concern” with the violence in Rakhine, a US State Department official told AFP. Patrick Murphy, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Southeast Asia, will meet with government leaders and travel to the state capital of Rakhine but not the conflict zone further north, the official said. The US was a key partner in pushing along Myanmar’s democratic transition, which saw the army step down from 50 years of brutal junta rule and allow the free elections in 2015 that swept Suu Kyi into office. But will there be any tangible result — it remains to be seen.
It is most disappointing to see that we have no leadership and the Prime Minister is not anxious not to seek support of the Western countries. She is not hopeful about US help. Although the Foreign Secretary said the opposite supporting America’s cooperation. But she is not feeling betrayed by India, China or Russia who she considered her government’s most trusted and tested friends. We must learn to think independently as an independent country.
