WHAT’S THE STORY?

UNDER-FIRE de facto Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi is due to address her nation tomorrow as the Rohingya crisis deepens.

She is expected to “speak for reconciliation and peace” but will be absent from a key debate at the UN General Assembly.

The UN has called for urgent steps to end the persecution against the Rohingya minority which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said amounted to ethnic cleansing.

Up to one third of the Rohingya Muslim population have fled to neighbouring Bangladesh – which is also under fire for regulations that are preventing aid getting through to stricken refugees.

Nearly 400,000 Rohingya have been forced to flee amid reports of rape, massacres and the destruction of entire villages.

Guterres condemned the alleged involvement of Myanmar’s security forces as entirely unacceptable and said the Rohingya were facing a “catastrophic” humanitarian situation.

“When we met last week there were 125,000 Rohingya refugees who had fled into Bangladesh. That number has now tripled to nearly 380,000,” he said. Asked if the crisis could be classed as ethnic cleansing, Guterres responded: “A third of the [Rohingya] population had to flee the country — can you find a better word to describe it?”

WHY IS IT HAPPENING?

A MOSTLY Muslim minority, living mainly in the Buddhist majority state of Rakhine, the Rohingya have suffered years of persecution. They have lived in Myanmar for many generations but are denied citizenship amid claims they are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

During the recent upsurge in violence, the army has denied targeting civilians, claiming it is waging war on militants. Attacks on security forces by a rebel group called Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) triggered the military crackdown but the UN has condemned “excessive violence” during the security operations and called for “immediate steps to end the violence in Rakhine, de-escalate the situation, re-establish law and order and ensure the protection of civilians”.

Several hundred thousand Rohingya were already refugees in Bangladesh, having fled earlier violence. Since the latest outbreak, more than 30 per cent of the villages in the north of Rakhine are now destroyed or empty. Tens of thousands of people have been forced to sleep in the open during the monsoon rains and many are going hungry.

Refugee Zakir Mamun said his village had been burned to the ground and the people massacred.

“They came for us,” said Zakir, who lost his adult son but managed to escape with his wife and injured grandson. “People were ordered indoors by the military. Then the military and the mobs threw bombs at our homes.”

CAN NOTHING BE DONE?

THERE are two official refugee camps in Bangladesh but their population is now “beyond saturation point” according to the UN. About 70,000 people are in the two camps — with the rest of the 400,000 new refugees struggling to survive outside them.

Aid is available, but the UNHCR, the UN’s main refugee body, is prevented from helping anyone outside the camps because of Bangladeshi government rules.

Bangladesh is already one of the most densely populated and poorest countries in the world so while the government claims it wants to support the refugees, it doesn’t want to make life too easy for fear of being swamped still further. Fears are also growing that the Rohingya’s plight may be exploited by terrorist networks intent on destabilising the region.

“The conditions in Rakhine are ripe for the influence of extremist stimuli, including the infiltration of Islamic State ideology, which may worsen the situation in Myanmar,” reported researchers at Singapore-based Nanyang Technological University.

Extremists in Indonesia, which houses the largest Muslim population in the world, are already using the crisis to fuel domestic religious tensions, according to the political consultancy, the Eurasia Group.

There are worries that the crisis “will draw in more extreme Islamists from elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and beyond, to support their cause,” said Peter Mumford, Southeast Asia head at Eurasia.

The National:

WHY IS SUU KYI SILENT?

AN international barrage of criticism has been leveled at Suu Kyi for failing to call a halt to the violence against the Rohingya.

The most popular figure in Myanmar, Suu Kyi led her party, the National League for Democracy(NLD), to an overwhelming victory in the 2015 election.

However the military still retain control in many areas, including defence. Security forces are the real power in Rakhine, where Buddhists fear becoming a minority and regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants.

The military’s story, mostly accepted by the general public, is that it is battling against externally funded extremists. This is largely unchallenged and the newly popular social media that is now accessible in the country has allowed hate speech and disinformation to flourish.

Suu Kyi could suffer a backlash if she speaks out against the military action.

The truth is that she has to move cautiously as there is nothing from stopping the military from deciding to replace her if she challenges what is happening to the Rohingya. It is possible, that despite her popularity, the tide of public opinion could swing against her to support the military if they took drastic action.

However, she still has immense moral power in Myanmar and, as a Nobel Peace Prize winner and long time campaigner for justice and democracy, her silence is disturbing.

Yet so far she seems comfortable with the military using her to take the international flak against their actions.