Myanmar's Suu Kyi to skip U.N. assembly
to deal with Rohingya crisis
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[September 13, 2017]
By Wa Lone
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's national
leader Aung San Suu Kyi, facing outrage over violence that has forced
about 400,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh, will not attend
the upcoming U.N. General Assembly because of the crisis, her office
said on Wednesday.
The exodus of refugees, sparked by the security forces' fierce response
to a series of Rohingya militant attacks, is the most pressing problem
Suu Kyi has faced since becoming leader last year.
Critics have called for her to be stripped of her Nobel peace prize for
failing to do more to halt the strife which the U.N. rights agency said
was a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".
Aid agencies will have to step up operations "massively" in response to
the refugee flow into Bangladesh, a senior U.N. official said, adding
that the $77 million the United Nations had appealed for last week would
not be enough.
But a Bangladeshi border force officer said the number of people
crossing into his area had fallen sharply, apparently because everyone
had left districts most affected by the violence.
Suu Kyi, in her first address to the U.N. General Assembly as leader in
September last year, defended her government’s efforts to resolve the
crisis over treatment of the Muslim minority.
This year, her office said she would not be attending because of the
security threats posed by the insurgents and her efforts to restore
stability.
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"She is trying to control the security situation, to have internal peace
and stability, and to prevent the spread of communal conflict," Zaw
Htay, the spokesman for Suu Kyi's office, told Reuters.
International pressure has been growing on Buddhist-majority Myanmar to
end the violence in the western state of Rakhine that began on Aug. 25
when Rohingya militants attacked about 30 police posts and an army camp.
The raids triggered a sweeping military counter-offensive against the
insurgents, described by the government as terrorists. Refugees say the
security operation is aimed at pushing Rohingya out of Myanmar.
They, and rights groups, paint a picture of widespread attacks on
Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine State by the security forces
and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists, who have torched many Muslim villages.
Authorities have denied that the security forces, or Buddhist civilians,
have been setting the fires, and have blamed the insurgents. Nearly
30,000 Buddhist villagers have also been displaced, they say.
The Trump administration has called for protection of civilians, and
Bangladesh says all the refugees will have to go home and has called for
safe zones in Myanmar.
But China, which competes with the United States for influence in Asia,
said on Tuesday it backed Myanmar's efforts to safeguard "development
and stability".
The U.N. Security Council is to meet on Wednesday behind closed doors
for the second time since the crisis erupted. British U.N. Ambassador
Matthew Rycroft said he hoped there would be a public statement agreed
by the council.
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![](../images/091317pics/news_q33.jpg)
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi talks during a news
conference with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Naypyitaw,
Myanmar September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun
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However, rights groups denounced the council for not holding a
public meeting. Diplomats have said China and Russia would likely
object to such a move.
PUBLIC SUPPORT
Myanmar's military, which ruled for almost 50 years until it began a
transition to democracy in 2011, retains significant political
powers and is in full control of security.
Nevertheless, critics say Suu Kyi could speak out against the
violence and demand respect for the rule of law.
But anti-Rohingya sentiment is common in Myanmar, where Buddhist
nationalism has surged since the end of military rule.
Suu Kyi, who the military blocked from becoming president and who
says Myanmar is at the beginning of the road to democracy, could
risk being denounced as unpatriotic if she were seen to be
criticising a military operation that enjoys widespread support.
A mob in central Myanmar threw stones at Muslim shops on Sunday but
there have been no serious outbreaks of communal violence elsewhere.
The government has warned of bomb attacks in cities and those
concerns are likely to be compounded by an al Qaeda call to arms in
support of the Rohingya.
"The savage treatment meted out to our Muslim brothers ... shall not
pass without punishment," al Qaeda said in a statement, according to
the SITE monitoring group.
Bangladesh was already home to about 400,000 Rohingya who fled
earlier conflict and many of the new refugees are hungry and sick,
without shelter or clean water.
"We will all have to ramp up our response massively, from food to
shelter," George William Okoth-Obbo, assistant high commissioner for
operations at the U.N. refugee agency, told Reuters during a visit
to the Kutupalong camp in Bangladesh.
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He declined to say how many people he thought might come but
Bangladeshi officer Lieutenant Colonel Ariful Islam said numbers
were falling off sharply in his area.
"The people who arrived in the early days after the atrocities, now
they've come out," Islam told Reuters.
(Additonal reporting by Krishna D. Das and Simon lewis in Bangldesh,
Kanupriya Kapoor in JAKARTA; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by
Simon Cameron-Moore)
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