Aung San Suu Kyi said Tuesday she does not fear global scrutiny over the Rohingya crisis, pledging to hold rights violators to account and to resettle some of the 410,000 Muslims who have fled army operations in her country.
In an address timed to pre-empt likely censure of Myanmar at the UN General Assembly in New York — delivered entirely in English and aimed squarely at an international audience — she called for patience and understanding of the unfurling crisis in her “fragile democracy”.
But she offered no solutions to what the UN calls “ethnic cleansing” in Rakhine state, where army-led operations have burned Muslim Rohingya from their homes, and refused to point the finger at the men in uniform.
Rights group Amnesty International said the Nobel peace laureate was “burying her head in the sand” over documented army abuses and claims of rape, murder and the systematic clearing of scores of villages.
Inside Myanmar, supporters say the 72-year-old leader lacks the the authority to rein in the military, which ran the country for 50 years and only ceded limited powers to her civilian government.
“She is trying to claw back some degree of credibility with the international community, without saying too much that will get her in trouble with the (military) and Burmese people who don’t like the Rohignya in the first place,” said Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch.
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