The curious case of Suu Kyi's silence
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When the whole world is appalled to see the extent to which the persecuted Rohingyas of Burma are suffering at sea -- crammed into small boats, pitted against one another without food and water, tortured like slaves by traffickers -- Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's nonchalance on the matter has come as a shock for many.
The leader, idolised by western media as the paragon of democracy in Burma, has chosen to remain silent over the issue ever since the state-sponsored violence in her country forced the Muslim minority community to migrate to different Southeast Asian countries through the risky sea routes.
In a number of reports and opinion pieces, journalists and columnists of famed international media outlets have called into question her double standards on the Rohingyas.
In an article published in The Guardian on Tuesday, Sara perria has said that "the world was understandably gripped by this unfolding human tragedy."
She went on to say: "But what has surprised some is the silence of the Nobel peace prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
"After all, these are the poverty-stricken and disenfranchised refugees from her own country who are now the focus of greater attention than ever before.
The contrast could not be more striking: how could such an iconic figure of human rights be so reticent when it comes to defending an ethnic minority from her own country?"
In another scathing article carried in The Independent on Wednesday, Penny Green has said: "In a genocide silence is complicity, and so it is with Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma's desperate Rohingya community. The Burmese government's ongoing persecution of the Rohingya has, in the last two
years, reached a level so untenable that the Rohingya are faced with only two options, to remain and risk annihilation or flee. The current exodus of those seeking asylum is just one manifestation of genocide."
Referring to the large-scale state-sponsored violence against the Rohingyas that left "over 200 Rohingya dead, hundreds of homes destroyed and the displacement of 120,000 people into what can only be described as detention camps", she has also said, "The Burmese state, without any challenge from opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, has institutionalized discrimination against the Rohingya, allowed hate speech to flourish, encouraged islamophobia and granted impunity to perpetrators of the violence."
Pointing to the recent international outcry over the issue, Sara Pierra has noted, "It was only at the urging of reporters on Monday that a spokesman for her opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), addressed the issue … But nothing has come directly from the party's leader. Aung San Suu Kyi herself has previously justified her reluctance to speak out on the issue of the Rohingya, even when pressed to do so during Buddhist-Muslim clashes that swept through the country in 2013."
Green in her article considers Suu Kyi's silence as a calculated political move to secure the votes of the Buddhist majority population in the national elections to be held later this year.
She says, "The entire Rohingya population has been disenfranchised, ahead of elections to be held later this year, and thus they hold no electoral power. It is true that to speak out against the genocidal persecution of the Rohingya is likely to lose her many votes among the Burmese Buddhist majority …"
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