Suu Kyi says Rohingya issue
needs careful handling
AFP June 18, 2015
In rare
comments
on Myanmar's persecuted Rohingya Muslims, opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi urged caution on granting citizenship to minorities,
saying the sensitive issue must be addressed "very, very
carefully".
The Myanmar government is reviewing citizenship
status and "should go about it very quickly and very transparently
and then decide what the next steps in the process should be," she
told The Washington Post.
But in an interview published online late Tuesday,
Suu Kyi dodged a direct question on whether the Rohingya — who have
triggered international outcry as they flee the country on rickety
boats in their thousands — should be given citizenship.
"The protection of rights of minorities is an issue
which should be addressed very, very carefully and as quickly and
effectively as possible, and I'm not sure the government is doing
enough about it," she said.
"It is such a sensitive issue, and there are so many
racial and religious groups, that whatever we do to one group may
have an impact on other groups as well," she stressed.
"So this is an extremely complex situation, and not
something that can be resolved overnight."
The plight of the Rohingya, one of the world's most
persecuted minorities, has worsened dramatically since 2012, when
communal bloodshed left scores dead and some 140,000 people
confined in miserable camps in Rakhine state.
The violence triggered a wave of deadly anti-Muslim
unrest in Myanmar and coincided with rising Buddhist nationalism
that has further entrenched animosity toward the minority widely
viewed as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
In recent months, images of starving, desperate
migrants hauled from vessels to Southeast Asian shores have spurred
calls for immediate humanitarian action.
But pro-democracy icon and Nobel peace laureate Suu
Kyi, who became a beacon of hope during decades of house arrest
under the military junta, has been accused of failing to speak up
for the country's powerless as she campaigns for elections due in
November.
"We have many minorities in this country, and I'm
always talking up for the right of minorities and peace and
harmony, and for equality," she told The Washington Post,
speaking after a landmark visit to China.
And she insisted that in Rakhine state "the
government has not done enough to lessen the tension and to remove
sources of the conflict".
Buddhist hardliners want the estimated 1.3 million
Rohingya expelled from Myanmar.
And neither the government nor opposition parties
have shown much appetite to confront communal tensions for fear of
alienating Buddhist voters ahead of the polls.
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party
is expected to sweep the elections, but she is barred from the
presidency under a constitutional provision excluding those with a
foreign spouse or children from the top job.
Suu Kyi, whose husband was British, told The
Washington Post she believed "the government is totally
opposed to constitutional amendment" that could pave the way to the
presidency.
After long being an international pariah due to the
military junta, Myanmar has embarked on a series of reforms
bringing it back into the diplomatic fold.
"We do worry that the reforms will turn out to be a
total illusion, and we think that we need more concrete steps to
ensure that the democratization process is what it was meant to
be," Suu Kyi added.