By NDTV
Aung San Suu Kyi
said she "feels deeply" for the suffering of "all people"
caught up in conflict scorching through Rakhine state, her first comments on a
crisis that also mentioned Muslims displaced by violence.
NAYPIYIDAW, MYANMAR:
HIGHLIGHTS
-Myanmar
'feels deeply for suffering' of all groups in Rakhine, she said
-Concerned
to hear the number of Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh: Suu Kyi
-Her
silence on Rohingya crisis had enraged international community
Myanmar leader Aung
San Suu Kyi today reached out to the global community in a broad appeal for
support over a refugee crisis the UN has decried as "ethnic
cleansing", urging outsiders to help her nation unite across religious and
ethnic lines and offering a pathway back to the country for some of the
Rohingya Muslims forced to flee by army operations.
Communal
violence has torn through Rakhine state since August 25, leaving hundreds dead and driving more than
410,000 of the Rohingya minority from Myanmar into Bangladesh.
Read more:
http://www.ndtv.com/world-news/suu-kyi-burying-head-in-sand-over-rakhine-crisis-amnesty-1752204
Suu Kyi, a Nobel
laureate, has been decried for failing to speak up publicly for the stateless
Rohingya or urge restraint from the military.
But in 30-minute
televised speech Tuesday she reached out to her critics, deploying the soaring
rhetoric that once made her a darling of the global rights community.
"Hate and fear
are the main scourges of our world," she said.
"We don't want
Myanmar to be a nation divided by religious beliefs or ethnicity... We all have the right to our diverse
identities."
While expressing her
sorrow for "all" groups displaced by violence, she said her country
stood ready "at any time" to take back refugees subject to a
"verification" process.
It was not
immediately clear how many of the estimated 410,000 Rohingya who have fled
Myanmar would qualify to return.
But the subject of
their claims to live Myanmar is at the heart of a toxic debate about the Muslim
group.
Myanmar's army has
previously it will not take back people linked with "terrorists" --
suggesting many came from the hundreds of Rohingya villages that have
subsequently been burnt to the ground.
Inside Myanmar,
supporters say the 72-year-old lacks the power to rein in the army, with whom
she is in a delicate power-sharing arrangement.
The UN has accused
Myanmar's army of "ethnic cleansing" over a campaign of alleged
murder and arson that has left scores of Rohingya villages in ashes.
The army denies
that, insisting its operations are a proportional response to the late August
raids by Rohingya militants, who they label "extremist Bengali
terrorists".
Since then just
under half of Rakhine's Rohingya population has poured into Bangladesh, where
they now languish in one of the world's largest refugee camps.
A further 30,000
ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as well as Hindus have also been displaced -- apparent
targets of the August 25 attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA)
militant group.
Suu Kyi skipped this
week's UN General Assembly in New York to manage the crisis at home and deliver
her televised address -- the biggest yet of her time in office.
Siege
mentality
Analysts say Suu Kyi
must walk a treacherous line between global opinion and Islamophobic
anti-Rohingya views at home, where the military has curdled hatred for the
Muslim minority.
While stories of
weary and hungry Rohingya civilians streaming into Bangladesh have dominated
global headlines, there is little sympathy for the Muslim group among Myanmar's
Buddhist majority.
Many reject the
existence of a Rohingya ethnicity and insist they are "Bengalis" --
illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
That narrative has
justified the denial of citizenship for the estimated one million Rohingya who
lived in Rakhine before the recent crisis.
Loathing for the
Rohingya has brought the public, including prominent pro-democracy activists,
into an unlikely alignment with an army that once had them under its heel.
A siege mentality
has emerged in Myanmar with the UN, international NGOs and foreign media the
focus of ire for apparent pro-Rohingya bias.
Many Facebook users
changed their profile picture on Tuesday to carry a banner with a photo of 'The
Lady' and saying "We stand with you Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" -- using an
honorific.
Tensions over the
status of the Rohingya have been brewing for years in Myanmar, with bouts of
anti-Muslim violence erupting around the country as Buddhist hardliners fan
fears of an Islamic takeover.
Although the
military stepped down from outright junta rule in 2011, it kept control of
security policy and key levers of government.
Any overt break from
the army's policy in Rakhine could enrage the generals and derail Suu Kyi's
efforts to prevent a rollback on recent democratic gains.
Observers say the
military may be deliberately destabilising her government with one eye on 2020
elections.
Commander-in-chief
Min Aung Hlaing has emerged during the crisis as an unexpectedly popular
figure, pitching himself as a defender Myanmar's territorial integrity and the
Buddhist faith.