Government forces and militant Buddhists have persecuted Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar for years.

So it’s hardly surprising that fleeing Rohingyas have now created a humanitarian crisis in Bangladesh. This rivals the notorious crisis Syrian refugees created in Europe.

The first thing Rohingya villagers fleeing Myanmar notice when they get to Bangladesh, apart from the stench of raw sewage from thousands of other refugees lacking access to toilet facilities, is locals trying to sell them bamboo poles [to build their own makeshift huts].

In the past two-and-a-half weeks, an estimated 370,000 people fleeing violence in Myanmar’s eastern state of Rakhine have streamed into the country, creating a humanitarian crisis.

(Financial Times, September 13, 2017)

What’s surprising is that it took social media turning the Rohingya plight into a viral cause for so many eminent persons to finally speak out.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who became leader of Burma after 30 years under house arrest for agitating for democracy, has been heavily criticised for failing to address the Rohingya people’s plight. …

She has been condemned by fellow Nobel peace prize laureates [including celebrated child activist Malala Yousafzai]. Desmond Tutu called on Ms Suu Kyi to speak out against the ‘unfolding horror’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Burma, warning: ‘If the political price of your ascension to the highest office is your silence, the price is surely too steep.’

(The London Times, September 9, 2017)

Suu Kyi’s Trumpian response

Suu Kyi must have left Tutu and others crestfallen when she responded to their humanitarian appeals by channeling Donald Trump.

‘It is a little unreasonable to expect us to solve the issue in 18 months,’ she told the Delhi-based network Asian News International. ‘It goes back to pre-colonial times.’…

On Wednesday a post on Aung San Suu Kyi’s Facebook page blamed ‘terrorists’ for a ‘huge iceberg of misinformation’ about the violence, and made no mention of the Rohingya who had fled.

(London Guardian, September 7, 2017)

It was bad enough that she framed ethnic cleansing on her watch as a legacy of pre-colonial times. But she destroyed what little integrity she had left when she invoked “fake news.”

The Trumpian absurdity of her response seemed completely lost on her. But it wasn’t lost on UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, who delivered this extraordinary denunciation:

The situation seems a textbook case of ethnic cleansing. …

[Suu Kyi’s government] should stop claiming that the Rohingyas are setting fire to their own homes and laying waste to their own villages. This complete denial of reality is doing great damage to the international standing of a Government which, until recently, benefited from immense good will.

(UN News Centre, September 11, 2017)

Calls to rescind her Nobel Prize

The good will Suu Kyi has lost is evident in viral calls to rescind her 1991 peace prize. Unfortunately, the Nobel Committee has no process for rescinding prizes.

More importantly, this barrage of condemnation is too little, too late for too many Rohingyas.

A prescient warning ignored

As it happens, I have standing to dismiss even Archbishop Tutu as a Johnny-come-lately to this cause. Because I’ve been condemning Suu Kyi and her government for years, while others remained silent.

Back in 2012, I warned about Obama’s premature engagement with Myanmar. I noted how President Thein Sein had co-opted the former “democracy icon” into his establishment as powerless opposition leader. Even then, I condemned her “deafening silence while majority Buddhists continue their ethnic cleansing of minority Muslims.”

I challenged her self-righteous claim of preserving “impartiality.” And I compared her unfavorably to Gandhi, asking how much worse ethnic cleansing in India would have been if Gandhi hadn’t spoken out against it.

My subsequent posts consistently decried Suu Kyi’s willful failure to condemn this religious cleansing happening right under her nose. From 2013 through 2017, iPINIONS documented her transformation from democracy icon to enabler of ethnic cleansing. I refer you to the related commentaries linked below…

Too little, too late

Moral giants like Tutu and the Dalai Lama will have to forgive my skepticism about their belated condemnations. This is like staying silent for years as Assad gassed Syrians, then only speaking up when refugees create a crisis in Europe.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi has joined the rogue’s gallery of pariah leaders who dare not attend the UN General Assembly. Like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, she fears being treated like a skunk at the garden party.

But this attempt to save face
Will just seal her fall from grace.

The path not taken

In 2015, I pleaded for an EU-led coalition to create safe zones in Syria with humanitarian relief. Had they done so, there would have been no Syrian refugee crisis. Likewise, an India-led or China-led coalition could have prevented the Rohingya crisis.

Such humanitarian interventions are the least we should expect from countries aspiring to exercise superpower influence. This is especially true given the UN’s repeated inability to effectuate such interventions.

Legacy Note: With over 5,600 posts spanning 20 years, I am easily the most prolific blogger on the most eclectic array of topics on the web. That makes The iPINIONS Journal an unparalleled archive of informed political and cultural commentary. Visit the ARCHIVES section in the sidebar or search by topic. You won’t find a more consistent, independent voice on world affairs.

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