{"id":71310,"date":"2016-04-04T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=71310"},"modified":"2016-04-02T13:51:31","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T12:51:31","slug":"how-nobel-peace-laureate-aung-san-suu-kyi-and-her-u-s-allies-deny-burmese-anti-muslim-atrocities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/04\/how-nobel-peace-laureate-aung-san-suu-kyi-and-her-u-s-allies-deny-burmese-anti-muslim-atrocities\/","title":{"rendered":"How [Nobel Peace laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi and Her U.S. Allies Deny Burmese Anti-Muslim Atrocities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading expert on the Rohingya genocide slams Suu Kyi, Hillary Clinton and Samantha Power.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Aung<\/a><\/p>\n

31 Mar 2016 – <\/em>Burmese Nobel Laureate and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi reportedly lost her composure<\/a> when questioned about the dire conditions of Muslims in her country during a BBC interview two years ago. When pressed by BBC personality Mishal Hussain, a Muslim, Suu Kyi\u00a0expressed her displeasure in an off-the-record remark, allegedly complaining, \u201cNo one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim!\u201d<\/p>\n

The disclosure was made in a new book about Suu Kyi, leader of the current ruling party National League For Democracy (NLD), titled<\/a>\u00a0The Lady and the Generals: Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma\u2019s Struggle for Freedom<\/em>, by British author Peter Popham. In the same BBC interview with Hussain, Suu Kyi denied any evidence of genocide of the Burmese Muslim group Rohingya. She equated their suffering with Burmese Buddhist residents who are over 90% of the population, whereas Muslims only comprise<\/a> 4%.<\/p>\n

Recognized as a hero in the west for her struggle for democracy, Suu Kyi has been lambasted by critics for her lackluster response to the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya and persecution of Muslims in Burma.<\/p>\n

The plight of the Rohingya became a serious but temporary news fixture in 2012\u00a0when violence broke out<\/a> in the state of Rakhine, next to the Bangladeshi border. The ensuing violence led to approximately 125,000 Muslims, including Rohingya, to be displaced from their homes.<\/p>\n

A damning 2013 report by Human Rights Watch titled<\/a>\u00a0“All You Can Do Is Pray”: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Burma\u2019s Arakan State<\/em> highlighted the grave atrocities committed in 2012. \u201cThe Burmese government engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya that continues today through the denial of aid and restrictions on movement,\u201d said Phil Robertson, HRW\u2019s Asia director.<\/p>\n

A group of radical Buddhist monks have led the charge against the Rohingya and Burmese Muslims in general. Infamous monk Ashin Wirathu has led protests against Muslims, especially the Rohingya, in the Arakan state. Dubbed the\u00a0Buddhist bin Laden<\/a>, Wirathu has accused Burmese Muslims of establishing an Islamist state in Burma and has urged the Burmese people\u00a0to avoid<\/a> Muslim-run businesses.<\/p>\n

Burmese government officials have helped spur on the actions of nationalist monks like Wirathu. After the violence in 2012, former Burmese president Thein Shein\u00a0suggested<\/a> that the Rohingya be deported from Burma. Last year, his administration passed\u00a0severely restrictive religious laws<\/a> that were certain to discriminate against the Burmese Muslim population, an overture Wirathu and his ilk fully supported.<\/p>\n

As the government continues to isolate its most vulnerable minority, many Rohingya have tried to escape the country. Horrendous stories of\u00a0Rohingya people\u00a0fleeing in boats<\/a> while being killed or stranded at sea has left international observers in a state of alarm. The official government policy has been to put anyone seen escaping into refugee camps. Currently\u00a0over 100,000 people<\/a>, many of them Rohingya, are said to be languishing in these filthy camps.<\/p>\n

As the crisis rages on, Suu Kyi\u2019s indifference and apparent lack of concern has been notable. Maung Zarni, a former visiting fellow at Oxford and Harvard and founder-director of the Free Burma Coalition (1995-2004), spoke to AlterNet on the subject. Zarni who is the co-author of a paper\u00a0titled<\/a>\u00a0The Slow Burning Genocide of Myanmar’s Rohingyas<\/em>, characterized Suu Kyi\u2019s false equivalency between Buddhists and Muslims as \u201cdeeply ignorant.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is utterly pathetic for anyone to create this moral parity in terms of the scale of the sufferings experienced by the Buddhist Rakhine, who outnumber the Rohingya by three to one, and the sufferings experienced by the Rohingya,\u201d Zarni told AlterNet. \u201cIt would be like assigning the same moral responsibility to the Palestinians and the Israelis,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Zarni was wary of the term “ethnic cleansing,” being used to describe the situation of the Rohingya. Genocide and crimes against humanity are the better suited terms, he said. He said his own work and that of\u00a0Yale<\/a> and\u00a0Queen Mary university<\/a>, all multiyear studies published within the last two years, have arrived at the same conclusion\u2014that a slow but sure genocide of the Rohignya people is taking place.<\/p>\n

Suu Kyi\u2019s muteness on Rohingya and Muslim persecution is a product of both \u201celection calculus\u201d and \u201cpersonal racism,\u201d Zarni told AlterNet.<\/p>\n

Zarni asserted that he had discussed Suu Kyi\u2019s racism, which he says \u201cincidentally pervades Burmese society at all levels,” much earlier than the recent revelations in Popham\u2019s book, which he says is simply \u201ca publicity ploy\u201d rather a genuine concern for the Rohingya people.<\/p>\n

For Zarni, what is far more revealing is how Suu Kyi\u00a0has conducted her party affairs, such as the NLD\u00a0refusing<\/a>\u00a0to field any Muslim candidates in the most recent elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to some of her closest advisers in the NLD, ASSK was 100% responsible for cleansing the entire party of all Muslim MP candidates,\u201d Zarni told AlterNet. \u201cEven her deputy chair and co-founder ex-general Tin Oo was amenable to the proposal by the junior colleagues to field at least two very qualified NLD members of Islamic background in the 2015 elections last November.\u201d<\/p>\n

Furthermore, he added, \u201cToday, NLD becomes the first political organization with no single Muslim representation in Burma’s recorded political history. The past pre-colonial feudal rulers and all the anti-colonial nationalist political resistance movements had allowed participation and representation by Muslims in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEven the most repressive Burmese military’s political front would allow token Muslim participation. Aung San Suu Kyi would not even adopt token representation. That’s the depth of her anti-Muslim racism,\u201d Zarni asserted.<\/p>\n

Zarni believes that with her actions Suu Kyi\u00a0is \u201csetting an extremely dangerous precedent and emerging as a toxic role model,\u201d especially since \u201cthe masses in Burma kiss the ground she walks on.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said that \u201canti-Muslim racism is not just the exclusive world view of the largely ignorant electorate who grew up in ignorance about Islam, but has infested even the most elite circles of western educated Burmese. Aung San Suu Kyi is only the most famous\u2014now infamous\u2014one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hailed as a champion for freedom and democracy in the west, criticism of Suu Kyi’s\u00a0actions from American and European leaders has largely been muted. Current Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton praised the November elections in Burma as historic, while claiming part credit in convincing the former Burmese general to make a democratic transition.<\/p>\n

“When I was Secretary of State, President Obama and I worked with Aung San Suu Kyi and others on the ground in Burma to nurture flickers of progress into a real opening,” Clinton said in a statement, in the aftermath of the elections that Suu Kyi\u2019s party won.<\/p>\n

The fact that Rohingya and other Burmese Muslims were barred by Suu Kyi from contesting in the NLD was glossed over.<\/p>\n

Zarni singled out Samantha Power, the current U.S. ambassador to the UN, as being particularly culpable in ignoring the ongoing atrocities. He said that while Power may have written a\u00a0book<\/a> criticizing U.S. inaction in ending genocides around the world, in her current role as UN ambassador and one of Obama\u2019s closest aides, she hasn\u2019t raised any alarms.<\/p>\n

Since 2012, when the Rohingya crisis first made global headlines, the situation of the ethnic group has gone from bad to worse. While Burma\u2019s transition to democracy and\u00a0Aung San Suu Kyi\u00a0are globally celebrated, the discrimination against Burmese Muslims is hardly paid lip service.<\/p>\n

When asked if a future President Clinton could turn things around, Maung\u00a0Zarni does not mince words: \u200b\u201cHillary Clinton is one of the most unprincipled and uncaring politicians,” he charged. “You can expect virtually nothing progressive or emancipatory from her, if you are a part of what Fanon called the ‘wretched of the Earth,’ the oppressed. She is for herself and for the Wall Street that pays her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 alternet.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[TRANSCEND member Maung] Zarni was wary of the term “ethnic cleansing.” Genocide and crimes against humanity are the better suited terms, he said. His own work [Oxford, Harvard] and that of Yale and Queen Mary university, have arrived at the same conclusion\u2014that a slow but sure genocide of the Rohingya people is taking place. Suu Kyi\u2019s muteness on Rohingya and Muslim persecution is a product of both \u201celection calculus\u201d and \u201cpersonal racism,\u201d Zarni said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71310\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}