Sectarian unrest rocking Myanmar has put Aung San Suu Kyi under pressure to speak up for the stateless Rohingya, but experts say the issue is a political minefield given ethnic and religious divides.
The Nobel laureate, on a landmark visit to Europe, was repeatedly asked by reporters on Thursday about the clashes between Buddhist Rakhine and the Muslim Rohingya that have left dozens dead and more than 30,000 displaced.
Speaking in Geneva, on her first trip to the continent since 1988, the veteran activist stressed “the need for rule of law,” adding that without it “such communal strife will only continue.”
Photo: AFP
However, her carefully chosen comments fell short of offering strong support to Myanmar’s estimated 800,000 Rohingya, described by the UN as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, and she is on the horns of a dilemma.
Myanmar’s government considers the Rohingya to be foreigners, while many citizens — including the local Rakhine Buddhist population — see them as illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh and view them with hostility.
“Our appeal is to the UN, foreign nations, the Myanmar government and especially to [Aung San] Suu Kyi,” Mohammad Islam, leader of Rohingya refugees living in a camp in the Bangladesh border town of Teknaf, said on Wednesday.
“Aung San Suu Kyi hasn’t done or said anything for us, yet the Rohingya including my parents campaigned for her in the 1990 elections,” he added.
Experts say the issue is fraught with political danger for Aung San Suu Kyi as she tries to build her credentials as a unity figure who can represent Myanmar’s myriad minority groups as well as the democratic opposition among the majority Burmese.
“Many will want to know whether she considers Rohingya to be Burmese citizens deserving of the rights and protections that status should entail,” said Nicholas Farrelly, a research fellow at Australian National University.
If she fails to tackle the subject she risks disappointing those who “crave her leadership” he said — yet support for the Rohingya “risks alienating some Burmese Buddhists” who fear Myanmar’s minorities will gain growing influence.
The question threatens to overshadow her return to the world stage after 24 years inside Myanmar — much of it under house arrest — more so as today she is scheduled to deliver her long-awaited Nobel Peace Prize lecture.
Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned in her Yangon villa by Myanmar’s generals at the time of the 1991 award, which cemented her place and the nation’s democracy cause in the global spotlight.
The latest bloodshed has raised fears for Myanmar’s fragile reform process, which has propelled Aung San Suu Kyi from prisoner to parliamentarian in under two years. Some even question whether the timing of the unrest is a coincidence, coming shortly before the opposition leader left for Europe.
UN rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana has said the Rakhine unrest poses a threat to the country’s shift towards democracy, echoing earlier warnings by Burmese President Thein Sein that the country’s “democratic process” could be damaged.
The government has signed ceasefires with several ethnic rebel groups around the country, yet ongoing fighting in northern Kachin State and the communal clashes in Rakhine have underscored the fragility of peace across Myanmar.
“It’s a very explosive situation and whoever touches the issue will have to walk a very, very fine line,” said Aung Naing Oo, a Myanmar expert with the Vahu Development Institute in Thailand.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
RSS