Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi, a human-rights icon, is criticized on anti-Muslim violence - ... - 0 views
www.washingtonpost.com/...3-a373-0f9f2d1c2b61_story.html
burma history politics crisis policy violence aung san suu kyi
shared by julia rhodes on 23 Dec 13
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to some of Suu Kyi’s admirers in the West, and ethnic and religious minorities here in Burma, the last few months have been disconcerting.
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Suu Kyi, however, is making no apologies for sounding less like a human rights icon and more like a politician playing to the country’s Buddhist majority.
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“Please don’t forget that I started out as the leader of a political party. I cannot think of anything more political than that,” Suu Kyi said at a Dec. 6 news conference in Rangoon. “Icon was a depiction that was imposed on me by other people.”
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Suu Kyi’s situation is particularly sensitive as she attempts to persuade the country’s still-powerful military to change the constitution before national elections in 2015 and, among other things, remove a provision that bars her from becoming president.
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t critics say that Suu Kyi, a member of the country’s Buddhist, Burman elite, is softening her long-standing support for human rights in an effort to appease the military and protect herself from ruling-party politicians would might play the ethnic card against her
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any Rohingya have lived in Burma — also known as Myanmar — for generations, but their national origins remain a subject of bitter contention. The government considers them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh.
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Suu Kyi rejected charges that the Rohingya situation amounts to “ethnic cleansing.” She said that both Buddhists and Muslims have fears about each other, noting that there is “a perception that global Muslim power is very great.” While the brunt of recent violence has fallen on Muslims, she equated the two groups’ suffering and said that many Burmese Buddhists who fled military rule also remain stranded as refugees in various countries.
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I understand the Western countries are giving pressure about the Rohingya,” Nyan Win said. However, he said, “according to our history and our law, we can’t accept the Rohingya.”
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Suu Kyi faces an enormously complicated political situation in a country emerging from decades of isolation. She would undoubtedly seek to heal the country’s political, ethnic and religious divisions as president, they say, if only she got the chance to serve.
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Suu Kyi’s situation is particularly difficult given that when it comes to the presidency, she literally cannot win. The military overturned her party’svictory in 1990, put her under house arrest and then wrote a new constitution in 2008 that barred people with foreign spouses or children from becoming president.
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A member of the Kachin Peace Network, she has been trying to get Suu Kyi to address the problem of rapes of displaced ethnic women in Kachin State. In a recent news conference, Suu Kyi tiptoed around the issue of sexual violence in conflict zones, saying that ethnic militias are also complicit.
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Khon Ja said Suu Kyi had been the “voice of people who were suffering in Myanmar.” But she and other younger Kachin have soured on Suu Kyi, she said.