This is with reference the story, “Obama pushes change on historic Myanmar visit” (Nov. 20). We have learned that in two spasms of violence, in June and October, Burmese Buddhists fought Rohingya Muslims using hoes, hatchets and bamboo spears. Methodical arson attacks destroyed more than 100,000 buildings, mostly in Rohingya villages, as 167 people were killed and more than 110,000 were made homeless. After that in a letter to the United Nations, Thein Sein pledged to “address contentious political dimensions, ranging from resettlement of displaced populations to granting of citizenship,” perhaps giving a glimmer of hope to the stateless and widely reviled Rohingya minority. In the first-ever visit to Myanmar (or Burma, its former name) by a sitting American president, Obama met with Thein Sein and the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
The pledge of the Myanmar authority to consider a set of new rights for Rohingyas, who have been made stateless in their own country, does not go far enough. It is the question of citizenship of the Muslims of Arakan State that is the nub of the issue. Amidst renewed violence against them in Myanmar, an early resolution of the matter assumes great importance.
What is appalling is the position taken by the Myanmar Nobel Laureate on the issue. We find Suu Kyi’s unwillingness to take the side of the oppressed as morally untenable, particularly for a Nobel Peace Laureate. Contrary to her belief, her keeping equidistance from the issue will not promote national reconciliation; it will only encourage the oppressors to do more of what they are doing.
However, we hope that the chorus of international condemnation, including that of the UN and the OIC, of the Myanmar government’s failure to protect its ethnic minority and even turning a blind eye to the violence perpetrated on them by the majority community with the support of the government agencies, would have a positive impact. And we hoped that President Obama would be able to convince the Myanmar junta to resolve the longstanding ethnic issue, during his visit to that country. — Naser Mullah, Riyadh
