Suu Kyi tries to deceive international community: Rohingya leader

A member of the Rohingya community who campaigns for the rights of the Burmese ethnic group in Europe has rejected de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech, saying she tried to ‘deceive’ the international community.

She presented ‘factually and verifiably wrong information’, Ibrahim Mohamed, founder of the European Rohingya Council or ERC, told bdnews24.com after her speech.

Suu Kyi made her first speech since attacks by Rohingya Muslim insurgents on Aug 25 sparked a military response that drove over 410,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh on Tuesday and condemned any human rights violations in Rakhine State.

The Nobel peace laureate also said her country is ready to welcome back refugees who have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh after verification.

The Bangladesh government has yet to make any official comments on her address, but a senior official at the foreign ministry told bdnews24.com that Dhaka had long been pressing Myanmar on the ‘joint verification’ of the Rohingyas who have lived in Cox’s Bazar for decades.

Myanmar took back 236,599 Rohingyas to their homeland through a bilateral agreement in 1992 when they recognised them as ‘members of Myanmar society’. About 2,500 verified refugees remained behind in the camps, but Myanmar has yet to take them back.

European Rohingya Council founder Ibrahim Mohamed.

Ibrahim Mohamed said: “As we expected, Aung San Su Kyi tried to deceive the international community with factually and verifiably wrong information.”

“First of all she covers for the military and other security forces who have been committing genocide. She acts as a shield. She did not condemn the security forces. Instead she blamed Rohingyas,” he explained.

“She said the clearance operation stopped on the first week of September. This is factually wrong. Even this week the military has burned Rohingya houses”.

“She invites the international community to the area, but does not giving visa to the international fact-finding mission.

“She said Rohingya receive education and health care access. This is utterly false.

“She said other people are displaced as well like Muslims. No. This is not true. Other ethnic people are evacuated by the government,” he said.

“Su Kyi would not solve Rohingya issue at the expense of her political goal,” he bemoaned, urging the international community to help the minority gain Myanmar citizenship.

Smoke is seen on Myanmar's side of border as a Rohingya refugee men carry children from a boat after crossing the Bangladesh-Myanmar border through the Bay of Bengal in Shah Porir Dwip, Bangladesh, Sept 15, 2017. Reuters

A senior official at the foreign ministry who chose to remain anonymous told bdnews24.com that Suu Kyi needs to visit camps in Bangladesh to understand what prompted those hundreds of thousands of the Rohingyas to flee to Bangladesh.

“We requested that her security adviser visit the camps during a recent visit to Dhaka, but the adviser did not go,” the official said.

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali had previously told Dhaka-based diplomats that Bangladesh has always preferred a bilateral solution to the long-standing Rohingya crisis, but Myanmar never responded to any of its proposals.

“Rather, they have been running a malicious propaganda terming the Rohingyas ‘illegal migrants from Bangladesh’ and the attackers to their BGP posts as ‘Bengali terrorists’,” he had said in a briefing following the latest influx.