YANGON: China endorses Myanmar’s offensive against Rohingya Muslim insurgents, Myanmar state media said on Thursday, as the UN secretary-general described the operation, forcing nearly 400,000 people to flee to Bangladesh, as “ethnic cleansing”.
The Myanmar military offensive in the western state of Rakhine was triggered by a series of guerrilla attacks on Aug. 25 on security posts and an army camp in which about a dozen people were killed.
“The stance of China regarding the terrorist attacks in Rakhine is clear, it is just an internal affair,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Thursday quoted China’s ambassador, Hong Liang, as telling top government officials.
“The counter-attacks of Myanmar security forces against extremist terrorists and the government’s undertakings to provide assistance to the people are strongly welcomed.”
China competes with the US for influence in Myanmar, which in 2011 began emerging from nearly 50 years of strict military rule and diplomatic and economic isolation.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration called for protection of civilians.
The violence in Rakhine and the exodus of refugees is the most pressing problem Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has faced since becoming national leader last year.
Critics have called for her to be stripped of her Nobel prize for failing to do more to halt the strife. She is due to address the nation on Tuesday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council on Wednesday urged Myanmar to end the violence, which he said was best described as ethnic cleansing.
“When one third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, could you find a better word to describe it?” he told a news conference in New York.
The government says it is targeting “terrorists”, while refugees say the offensive aims to push Rohingya out of Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
Numerous Rohingya villages in the north of Rakhine have been torched but authorities have denied that security forces or Buddhist civilians have been setting the fires. They blame the insurgents.
The government said on Wednesday 45 places had been burned. It did not provide details but a spokesman said out of 471 villages in the north of Rakhine, 176 of them had been deserted and at least some people had left 34 others.
The spokesman, Zaw Htay, said the people fleeing to Bangladesh were either linked to the insurgents, or women and children fleeing conflict.
According to government figures, 432 people have been killed, most of them insurgents, since August 25. Bangladesh authorities say at least 100 bodies have been found in a border river and on nearby beaches, some with wounds.
Smoke was rising from at least two places on the Myanmar side on Thursday, a Reuters reporter in Bangladesh said. It was not clear what was burning.