BANGKOK, Apr 21: Aung San Suu Kyi’s refusal to condemn attacks on Muslims in Myanmar has dimmed the Nobel laureate’s lustre among global rights campaigners, but observers say her reticence will do her no harm with voters.
Nearly a month after religious riots killed 43 people in central Myanmar, the former political prisoner turned lawmaker finally voiced sympathy for Muslims targeted by violence that saw mosques and homes razed.
But Suu Kyi again failed to clearly condemn attacks against Muslims — who represent an estimated four per cent of the population — or hate speech by some extremist Buddhist monks.
Instead, as in 2012 when two waves of violence between the stateless Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists caused more than 180 deaths in the west, the opposition leader more indirectly urged respect for the “rule of law”.
“They did not feel they belonged anywhere else and you are just sad for them that they are made to feel they did not belong to our country either,” she said of Myanmar’s Muslims last week during a visit to Japan.
But Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and endured years of house arrest, defended the restrained nature of her remarks and said: “I am sorry if people do not find my comments interesting enough to acknowledge them.”
Rights groups say her comments, delivered late and without criticism of the perpetrators of violence, sit uncomfortably with her position as a democracy champion who led a long fight against Myanmar’s former military junta.
“I’m glad she is in some ways recognising that these people are facing a very, very difficult situation” but “there has to be more than just her feeling sad,” said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch.
“The burden of action here lies with the government, but she is not an ordinary opposition leader either… And this is where some of this moral authority built up over the years needs to be used,” he added.
For their part Myanmar’s ethnic minorities harbour suspicions of the Burman majority group — including Suu Kyi — and complain that discrimination endures under Myanmar’s civilian-led reformist government.
The Rohingya in particular feel let down by Suu Kyi.
Some 800,000 of the minority group, considered by the UN as one of the most persecuted in the world, live in Rakhine State where tens of thousands of people were displaced by the violence last year and still languish in makeshift camps.
Human Rights Watch has accused security forces of allowing and in some cases leading assaults against the Rohingya. (AGENCIES)
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