Tuesday September 19, 2017
Leader says ‘there have been allegations and counter-allegations’ about the violence in Rakhine state, which the UN says amounts to ethnic cleansing
Aung San Suu Kyi claimed the majority of Rohingya villages had not been affected by violence Photograph: Hein Htet/EPA
Aung San Suu Kyi has broken her silence on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, saying the government still needs to find out “what the real problems are” and that there have been “allegations and counter-allegations” that need to be investigated.
In her first public address since an army crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority was branded “ethnic cleansing” by the United Nations, she stressed the short time her government had been in power and said: “I’m aware of the fact that the world’s attention is focused on the situation in Rakhine state. As a responsible member of the community of nations Myanmar does not fear international scrutiny.
“We too are concerned. We want to find out what the real problems are. There have been allegations and counter-allegations. We have to listen to all of them. We have to make sure those allegations are based on solid evidence before we take action,” she said in the capital Naypyidaw.
Aung San Suu Kyi claimed the majority of Rohingya villages had not been affected by violence. She said the military – which has been accused of arson and indiscriminate killing – had been instructed to exercise restraint and avoid “collateral damage”.
Until now, Aung San Suu Kyi has not spoken publicly about the crisis since fresh violence broke out on 25 August, although in a phone call to the Turkish president she said “terrorists” were behind an “iceberg of misinformation” about the situation.
Striking a different tone in her 30-minute televised speech, she said she was “deeply concerned” about the suffering of people caught up in the conflict.
“We are concerned to hear that numbers of Muslims are fleeing across the border to Bangladesh,” she said. “We want to find out why this exodus is happening.”
Aung San Suu Kyi said her country stood ready “at any time” to take back refugees subject to a “verification” process. However, it was not immediately clear how many of the Rohingya who have fled Myanmar would qualify to return.
During the speech she mentioned the Rohingya by name only once, in reference to the armed militant group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been widely criticised – including by fellow Nobel laureates – for failing to speak out against violence targeting the Rohingya, an oppressed minority group.
She urged the world to see Myanmar as a whole and said it was “sad” that the international community was concentrated on one among the country’s many problems.
Aung San Suu Kyi has kept a near-complete silence on the bloodshed in Rakhine state that the United Nations’ top human rights official has referred to as “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Her refusal to defend the Rohingya and condemn army operations that have caused nearly 400,000 to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh has perplexed many of her supporters across the globe who idolised the Nobel laureate for her long struggle against military rule.
Following years of communal violence between persecuted Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists, the current wave of violence flared in August when security forces launched a huge counter-offensive in response to coordinated attacks by Rohingya militants.
The killings have displaced a further 30,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as well as Hindus.
Aung San Suu Kyi cancelled a planned visit to the UN general assembly in New York and her spokesman Zaw Htay told reporters ahead of Tuesday’s speech that she would “tell the world the real truth”.
Many in majority-Buddhist Myanmar – including several influential Islamophobic Buddhist monks – say the Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.