National security advisor denies systematic abuse in
Rakhine State conflict
ASIAN REVIEW
June 6, 2017
TOKYO -- Myanmar has made significant progress on peace
negotiations with ethnic armed groups, and is addressing the problems of the
Rohingya Muslim minority, Thaung Tun, the country's national security advisor,
told the Nikkei Asian Review on Monday.
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| Myanmar's National Security Advisor Thaung Tun speaks to Nikkei reporters in Tokyo on June 5. |
Highlighting Myanmar's strategic position between China
and India, he also noted the country's active engagement with both powers,
particularly with Beijing, which has featured high level exchanges on both
sides, including visits to China in recent months by Myanmar's State Counsellor
Aung San Suu Kyi and President Htin Kyaw.
"China is a very important partner [for
Myanmar]," Thaung Tun said. "We have 2,000km of border with China, we
want to see our country as a venue for cooperation rather than any
rivalry," he said in a clear reference to growing competition between
countries such as Japan and China for economic and political influence in Myanmar.
"Myanmar has always had cooperation with China, and
is now working closely together... We are working on special arrangements [on a
range of areas] ... We are old friends -- even friends sometimes have
disagreements -- but overall, we work together," he said, citing the
recent launch of an oil pipeline which tracks a parallel gas line opened in
2013 running from the Bay of Bengal off Myanmar's west coast to Yunnan in
southern China. "When China rises and becomes a big economic power it will
also have to shoulder additional responsibilities," he said, citing the
lines as a key part of Beijing's One Belt, One Road initiative.
The veteran former diplomat, who served as Myanmar's
ambassador to the European Union, the Philippines and other countries, also
hailed a recent agreement between China and the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations on a framework agreement for a code of conduct in the disputed waters
of the South China Sea.
"The framework was agreed two weeks ago at the
senior-officials level and will be taken to ministerial level and the [ASEAN]
summit at the end of the year," he said. "We believe that although it
has taken rather long to arrive at this point it is a very encouraging start.
It's just a framework but it's very good to get agreement.... We have the
skeleton and we have to flesh out the details; the positive thing is that China
is now talking with the Philippines, previously they were at loggerheads. At
least two of them are starting to talk."
Reflecting broader security concerns, he highlighted the
rise of non-traditional security threats, including transnational crime, cyber
security and climate change, all of which affect Myanmar, he noted. In
particular, the rapid development of telecommunications in Myanmar, where
internet penetration has risen from less than 8% in 2011 to well over five
times that level, made the country more vulnerable to cyberattacks, he said.
"We are developing e-banking, e-commerce, and it's
very important at this early stage of our modernization program. Nothing should
rock the boat at this stage. We have set up our own cybersecurity organization,
although it's still in early stages... We have gone from almost zero to almost
100% mobile coverage, SIM cards that cost $2,000 are now a couple for a dollar.
And social media is taking off. This can be positive ... but it can also lead
to incitement to violence," he said.
On international criticism of Myanmar's brutal treatment
of the Rohingya population, he denied charges voiced by the United Nations
Human Rights Council and other international organizations of systematic abuses
of Rohingya by Myanmar's security forces, echoing the government's recent
rejection of a U.N. backed fact-finding mission to investigate alleged abuses.
"There is no policy of systematic abuse, there is no
ethnic cleansing nor genocide; to say there is a policy of rape and plunder is
just not true ... present us with the evidence and we will investigate,"
Thaung Tun said, noting that specific cases of military abuse were being dealt
with in military courts. On concerns voiced by the international community --
including some Asian leaders -- about the plight of the country's mainly
stateless Rohingya population, the government had accepted the recommendations
of an advisory commission appointed by Suu Kyi and led by former U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, he said.