Burmese State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi has rejected a suggestion she is soft on the military, which the UN has accused of ethnic cleansing, saying her relationship with the generals was normal and her objective was national reconciliation.
Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday condemned rights abuses in Rakhine State, where conflict that began last month has forced 421,000 Rohingya Muslims to seek refuge in Bangladesh, and said violators would be punished.
However, in her first address to the Buddhist-majority nation on the crisis, she did not address UN accusations of ethnic cleansing by the security forces, drawing cool international responses.
“We’ve never changed our stand,” Aung San Suu Kyi said in an interview with Radio Free Asia, when asked if she had softened her stance on the military, which she challenged for years in her campaign for democracy.
“Our goal has been national reconciliation from the very beginning. We have never criticized the military itself, but only their actions. We may disagree on these types of actions,” she said.
She cited her unsuccessful bid in parliament to change a military-drafted constitution, which bars her from the presidency and gives the military responsibility over security and a veto over charter reform.
“We’ll continue to bring changes within the parliament. I’ve stood firm with the military before, and still do now,” she said.
She again did not refer to the accusations that the military is engaged in ethnic cleansing.
Western diplomats and aid officials had been hoping she would issue an unequivocal condemnation of violence and hate speech in her first address on the Rakhine conflict.
They welcomed the message, as far as it went, but some had been hoping for a stronger stand.
Aung San Suu Kyi condemned all rights violations and said she was committed to the restoration of peace and the rule of law.
On the return of refugees, she said Myanmar was ready to start a verification process under a 1993 arrangement with Bangladesh and “refugees from this country will be accepted without any problem.”
She also said diplomats could visit the conflict zone.
In a phone call to Aung San Suu Kyi, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson welcomed Myanmar’s commitment to allow the return of refugees, but urged it to facilitate aid to those affected by the violence and to address “deeply troubling” rights abuse allegations, the US Department of State said.
US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Patrick Murphy is in Myanmar this week. He is to travel to Rakhine’s capital, Sittwe, to meet government officials and representatives of different communities, but is not seeking to travel to the conflict zone.
China, which has close economic and diplomatic ties with Myanmar, has called for understanding of the government’s efforts to protect stability.
Britain said it had suspended its military training program in Myanmar and French President Emmanuel Macron condemned “unacceptable ethnic cleansing.”
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN General Assembly Myanmar must end military operations, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and recognize the right of refugees to return and the grievances of the Rohingya.
Twenty-two members of the US Congress wrote to Tillerson calling for a “strong, meaningful” response.
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker said Aung San Suu Kyi risked destroying her reputation.
“She had yet another opportunity today to stand up for the Rohingya minority ... but instead refused to acknowledge the military’s role in the ongoing atrocities,” he said.
Western governments that backed Aung San Suu Kyi’s campaign against military rule still see her as the best hope for Myanmar’s political and economic transition.
However, she has to avoid angering the army and alienating supporters by being seen to take the side of a Muslim minority that enjoys little sympathy in a nation that has seen a surge of Buddhist nationalism.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS