MANILA: Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi faced rising global pressure Tuesday to solve the crisis for her nation’s displaced Rohingya Muslim minority, meeting the UN chief and America’s top diplomat in the Philippines.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Nobel laureate that hundreds of thousands of displaced Muslims who had fled to Bangladesh should be allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar.
“The secretary-general highlighted that strengthened efforts to ensure humanitarian access, safe, dignified, voluntary and sustained returns, as well as true reconciliation between communities, would be essential,” a UN statement said, summarizing comments to Suu Kyi.
Guterres’ comments came hours before Suu Kyi sat down with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila.
Washington has been cautious in its statements on the situation in Rakhine, and has avoided outright criticism of Suu Kyi.
Supporters say she must navigate a path between outrage abroad and popular feeling in a majority Buddhist country where most people believe the Rohingya are interlopers.
At a photo opportunity at the top of her meeting with Tillerson, Suu Kyi ignored a journalist who asked if the Rohingya were citizens of Myanmar.
At a later appearance after the meeting, Tillerson — who is headed to Myanmar on Wednesday — was asked by reporters if he “had a message for Burmese leaders.”
He apparently ignored the question, replying only: “Thank you,” according to a pool report of the encounter.
A senior US State Department official later said the top diplomat would press Myanmar’s powerful army chief on Wednesday to halt the violence in Rakhine and make it safe for Rohingya to return.
The official did not comment on whether Tillerson would raise the threat of military sanctions, which US lawmakers have pushed for.
Canada’s Justin Trudeau said he had spoken to Myanmar’s de facto leader.
“I had an extended conversation with... Aung San Suu Kyi, about the plight of the Muslim refugees in Rakhine state,” he told a press conference.
“This is of tremendous concern to Canada and many, many other countries around the world.
“We are always looking at... how we can help, how we can move forward in a way that reduces violence, that emphasises the rule of law and that ensures protection for all citizens,” he said.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have flooded into Bangladesh since late August, and now live in the squalor of the world’s biggest refugee camp.
The crisis erupted after Rohingya rebels attacked police posts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, triggering a military crackdown that saw hundreds of villages reduced to ashes and sparked a massive exodus.
The UN says the Myanmar military is engaged in a “coordinated and systematic” attempt to purge the region of Rohingya in what amounts to a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing.”
The stream of desperate refugees who escape across the riverine border bring with them stories of rape, murder and the torching of villages by soldiers and Buddhist mobs.
The Burmese government insists military action in Rakhine is a proportionate response to violence by militants.
Following its first official investigation into the crisis, the army published a report this week in which it cleared itself of any abuses.
However, it heavily restricts access to the region by independent journalists and aid groups, and verification of events on the ground is virtually impossible.
Suu Kyi, a former democracy activist, has been lambasted by rights groups for failing to speak up for the Rohingya or condemn festering anti-Muslim sentiment in the country.
Musician and campaigner Bob Geldof on Monday slammed Suu Kyi as a “murderer” and a “handmaiden to genocide,” becoming the latest in a growing line of global figures to disavow the one-time darling of the human rights community.
Supporters say she does not have the power to stop the powerful military, which ruled the country for decades until her party came to power following 2015 elections.
In a summit on Monday night with leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, Guterres also voiced concern about the Rohingya.
He said the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya was a “worrying escalation in a protracted tragedy,” according to the UN statement.
He described the situation as a potential source of instability in the region, as well as radicalization.
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi meets Tillerson and UN chief on Rohingya crisis
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi meets Tillerson and UN chief on Rohingya crisis
Israel is risking global security, warns Somali Information Minister
- Tel Aviv’s actions boost terror groups, Daud Aweis Jama tells Arab News in exclusive interview
- He accuses Tel Aviv of wanting to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to region
RIYADH: Israel’s recognition of Somaliland and its presence in the region risks inflaming the situation there, allowing terrorist groups to undermine regional security and stability, according to Somali Information, Culture and Tourism Minister Daud Aweis Jama.
In a special interview with Arab News, Jama insisted that Israel’s unprecedented Dec. 26 move to recognize Somaliland as a sovereign state represents a major setback for Mogadishu’s fight against terrorist organizations like Al-Shabab and Daesh.
“The presence of Israel will be used by the terrorist groups to expand their operations in the region. (They will) have a pretext to spread their ideologies in the region,” he said.
“That is another factor that is also risking global security and regional stability, because we have been in the last stage of overcoming the challenges of the terrorist groups Al-Shabab and ISIS,” he added, using another term for Daesh.
Jama added: “We have been putting all our resources and all our time into making sure that we finalize the final stages of the fight against Al-Shabab. So, if something else interrupts us, that means that we are not going to focus fully on the operations against Al-Shabab. And that means we are giving more opportunities to Al-Shabab or other organizations.”
The consequences of this hit to Somalia’s ability to fight terror will not be restricted to the country’s borders, according to Jama, but will spread across the region and beyond.
“This might invite other, external terrorist groups to the region, because they will take advantage of this crisis and will make sure that they take over all the areas that have been defeated before,” the minister said.
“We believe this has come at a time that is going to affect our security as a Somali government, the security of the Horn of Africa, the security of the Gulf of Aden, the security of the Red Sea, the security of the Middle East and global stability. This is a very important location that holds the trade of the world.”
The minister underlined that Israel’s recognition and larger presence in the region are leading to more challenges, “putting more fuel on the ongoing challenges that exist in the region, especially in Somalia.” He added: “And at this time, it is not only limited to Somalia, but it’s going to be a challenge that is going to spread like a fire all over the region and all over the world.”
Jama told Arab News that Israel has other strategic motives for its recognition of Somaliland — including the forced resettlement of Palestinians from Gaza.
“According to reliable sources that our intelligence gathered, one of the conditions that Israel put forward (for recognizing Somaliland) was to have a place that they can settle the people from Gaza,” he said.
“We find that it is a violation also of the people of Palestine, because we believe that the people of Palestine have the right to self-determination. The two-state solution that has been the call of the international community has to be adhered to and implemented.”
Israel’s coalition government, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in its history, includes far-right politicians who advocate the annexation of both Gaza and the West Bank and encouraging Palestinians to leave their homeland.
Somalia’s UN Ambassador Abukar Dahir Osman said Security Council members Algeria, Guyana, Sierra Leone and Somalia “unequivocally reject any steps aimed at advancing this objective, including any attempt by Israel to relocate the Palestinian population from Gaza to the northwestern region of Somalia.”
Israel last month became the first country to recognize Somaliland as an independent nation. In the three-plus decades since its self-declaration of independence in 1991, no state had recognized the northwestern territory as being separate from Somalia.
Mogadishu immediately rejected the Israeli move, alongside countries all over the world.
Saudi Arabia affirmed its rejection of any attempts to impose parallel entities that conflict with the unity of Somalia. It also affirmed its support for the legitimate institutions of the Somali state and its keenness to preserve the stability of Somalia and its people.
A group of foreign ministers from Arab and Islamic countries, alongside the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, also firmly rejected Israel’s announcement. In a joint statement, the ministers warned that the move carries “serious repercussions for peace and security in the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea region” and undermines international peace and security.
The 22-member Arab League rejected “any measures arising from this illegitimate recognition aimed at facilitating forced displacement of the Palestinian people or exploiting northern Somali ports to establish military bases,” the organization’s UN Ambassador Maged Abdelfattah Abdelaziz told the UN Security Council.
In the most recent development in Israel-Somaliland relations, less than two weeks after Tel Aviv’s recognition, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar visited the region on Tuesday to publicly formalize diplomatic relations.
“It was a blatant violation of Somalia’s sovereignty that Israel recognized a region within the Somali Federal Republic as an independent state,” Jama underlined. “That was a total violation of international laws. It was a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Somalia.
“From the beginning, our path was to follow diplomatic efforts. And we kind of started with a successful UN Security Council meeting that supported Somalia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. (This was) followed by other international actors like the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the African Union and regional bodies like the East African Community and IGAD.
“Also, the Peace and Security Council of the African Union has reiterated the importance of supporting Somali sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
