POLITICS: SINGAPORE- State Counsellor rebuffs US VP Pence on northern Rakhine
Myanmar leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi rebuffed criticism from US Vice President Mike Pence and other leaders yesterday over the treatment of the Muslim minority in northern Rakhine State.
In a meeting on the sidelines of the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Singapore, Pence told Daw Aung San Suu Kyi that he was anxious to hear about progress in resolving the crisis, which stems from a violent military crackdown in Rakhine that the United Nations has called “ethnic cleansing”.
Pence said “the violence and persecution by the military and vigilantes that resulted in driving 700,000” Muslims from northern Rakhine to Bangladesh “is without excuse.”
Responding to Pence, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said it was good to exchange views, but that “we understand our country better than any other country does. I’m sure you will say the same of yours, that you understand your own country better than anybody else.”
“So we are in a better position to explain to you what is happening, how we see things panning out,” she said.
After the meeting, senior US administration officials said Pence and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi discussed the importance of having Muslims from northern Rakhine return home, but only on a voluntary basis, with safety and dignity.
He added that he was eager to hear about how Myanmar will enable the voluntarily return. Pence also said Myanmar’s arrest and conviction of two Reuters journalists was “deeply troubling” to millions of Americans.
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State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi listens to speeches during the ASEAN Plus China Summit on Wednesday in Singapore. Photo – AP
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“I look forward to speaking with you about the premium that we place on a free and independent press,” said Pence, who is representing an administration with an unusually adversarial relationship with the news media.
Also on Wednesday, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir, who severely criticised the State Counsellor a day earlier over the handling of the northern Rakhine crisis, toned down his comments, saying that ASEAN leaders try to avoid criticising each other.
Mahathir said the northern Rakhine crisis had come up during a working dinner among the leaders but the main sentiment was a desire to resolve the problem.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi became an icon for democracy after spending about 15 years under house arrest for opposing Myanmar’s earlier military dictatorship.
Though she has been the de facto head of Myanmar’s civilian government since her party swept elections in 2015, she is limited in her control of the country by a constitution written under the former military junta. The military is in charge of security operations, including those in Rakhine.
Still, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has faced widespread criticism for not speaking out in defence of the Muslims in northern Rakhine. Amnesty International became the latest organisation to strip her of an award this week, citing the “shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for.”
Myanmar’s government and most of the nation’s Buddhist majority say the Muslims in northern Rakhine are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh and do not acknowledge the Muslim minority as a local ethnic group, even though they have lived in Myanmar for generations.
A Bangladesh official said Wednesday that authorities are ready to begin repatriating more than 2200 northern Rakhine refugees to Myanmar. Bangladesh repatriation commissioner Abul Kalam said 30 refugee families will be transferred today at the Gundrum border point near Cox’s Bazar, where refugees have been living in cramped camps.
UN officials have urged Bangladesh to move cautiously on the repatriation plans, saying such a move would endanger their lives.
The office of UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said it continues to receive reports of rights violations in Rakhine, “which include allegations of killings, disappearances and arbitrary arrests.” It said some 130,000 people, including many Muslims from northern Rakhine, remain internally displaced in central Rakhine.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR also has advised against the returns, saying safety should be assessed first.
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