A De-Nobled Nobel Laureate
"We can't expect her to change the whole county in one-and-a-half years, but we expect a strong human rights-based approach."
Ma Thida, medical doctor, international human rights awards recipient, Myanmar
"She [Aung San Suu Kyi] may shake hands with the military across a table, but under it they are kicking her."
Thant Thaw Kaung, executive director, Myanmar Book Aid and Preservation Foundation
| (Bernat Armangue / Associated Press) A Rohingya child is carried on a sling while his family walk through rice fields after crossing the border into Bangladesh. |
In miserable refugee camps in Myanmar and Bangladesh, 320,000 Rohingya, uprooted from their homes in towns and villages in Rakhine province, live in squalor and utter privation. Of Myanmar's population of a million Rohingya, one thousand have been killed in the last little while in an orgy of violence. Security forces and Buddhist religious zealots have brutalized the minority Rohingya in western Myanmar who have lived there for generations, under duress of contempt from the majority Burmese.
In the years that Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi defied the military junta she had the attention and admiration of the world as a staunch fighter for human rights. Now ostensibly liberated from the oppression of the military junta and following a democratic election, she was elevated to the leadership of her nation and enjoys tremendous popularity among the populace who view her as their liberator.
Her fifteen years living under house arrest only emphasized her resilience and her resolve to see freedom returned to her country. There are those, however, who express their profound disappointment in this redoubtable warrior for justice who appears on the face of current events to have somehow lost her way. Those who supported her heroic stand against the oppressive military who did all in their power to suppress the pro-democracy movement she was so symbolic of now have their doubts.
| (K. M. Asad / AFP/Getty Images) Rohingya refugees shelter under tarps at a refugee camp near Teknaf, Bangladesh. |
Now, there is international criticism of this symbol of democracy and human rights and freedoms. The situation of the Burmese Rohingya has been deteriorating for years. Even with the removal of the military, the Rohingya continued to be targeted, and attacked by other Burmese as a foreign element originally from Bangladesh though they've lived in peace, albeit not harmoniously for many generations in eastern Myanmar.
A humanitarian crisis has unfolded in the last few weeks after new waves of violence erupted. Militants among the Rohingya, in retaliation for police brutality against the Rohingya, attacked a police station killing a number of police and taking the lives of a number of (twelve and 77 respectively) Buddhist civilians in revenge attacks. Which brought a predictable response of police action, 'clearing out' towns and villages of terrorists, in the process burning down homes in those towns and villages and ordering their residents to move on or be killed.
It has been weeks of unlimited violence, and as in the past, Suu Kyi said nothing until finally blaming fake news and a misinformation campaign responsible for blowing up out of all proportions the results of a nation attempting to secure itself and its people from terrorist activities. The UN speaks of a crisis where over 125,000 Rohingya have been banished into Bangladesh, suffering atrocities on the way to their escape.
| A Rohingya family fleeing Myanmar crosses a creek of the Naf river to reach the border with Bangladesh. (Bernat Armangue / Associated Press) |
She is the ultimate authority in the nation, through her singular mandate as government leader, senior in influence and prestige to the president. According to her critics, her popular mandate proffers on her the authority to challenge the military which continues to wield power under the screen of civil leadership.
Labels: Conflict, Myanmar, Refugees, Rohingya, Suu Kyi
posted by Pieface @ Friday, September 08, 2017
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