Myanmar must have peace to carry out sustainable development, Burmese State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday, as rights activists say conflict in the north of the troubled state of Rakhine has led to civilian abuse by the military.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner is in Japan on a five-day visit to court investment and aid, as an upsurge in violence against the persecuted Muslim minority Rohingya at home poses the worst crisis of her six months in power.
She has faced mounting criticism abroad for her government’s handling of the crisis in Rakhine, where soldiers are accused of raping and killing civilians, and where aid workers were refused access until the government on Thursday agreed to allow them to resume work.
Photo: AFP/Imperial Household Agency
The violence is the most serious to hit Rakhine since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in 2012.
However, tension between Myanmar’s ethnic minorities and the majority Burmans has prompted many groups to take up arms and fight the military on the fringes of the country since independence in 1948.
“We are still not at peace; there is still armed conflict between various ethnic groups in our country,” Aung San Suu Kyi told Japanese business leaders. “We must have peace in order that our development may be stable and sustainable.”
She gave no further details.
Aung San Suu Kyi has not directly commented on calls from human rights experts urging the government to investigate the allegations of abuse in Rakhine, or on statements from human rights monitors, although she has urged the military to act with restraint.
“We want all our ethnic peoples to feel that they have an equal chance to progress, that it is truly a nation made up of diverse peoples, but united in our purpose to be a society that is at harmony,” she told the business leaders.
The Rakhine military operation has sharpened the tension between Aung San Suu Kyi’s six-month-old civilian administration and the army, which ruled the country for decades and retains key powers, including control of ministries responsible for security.
While Myanmar’s army-drafted constitution puts the military firmly in control of security matters, diplomats and aid workers say privately they are dismayed at Aung San Suu Kyi’s lack of deeper involvement in the handling of the crisis that has included a string of foreign trips as the crisis deepened.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not