Aung San Suu Kyi Sells Out

A news report says that Aung San Suu Kyi refuses to use her "moral leadership" to intervene in the massacre of Rohingya Muslims by Rakhine Buddhists in west Myanmar.

What a sell out of humanitarian principle by someone who should know better.

Suu Kyi is further quoted by the BBC:

"I am urging tolerance but I do not think one should use one's moral leadership, if you want to call it that, to promote a particular cause without really looking at the sources of the problems"

Huh?

Tolerance she says.  How can someone who has suffered under the brutality of the despots that run Burma merely offer such a hollow and dismissive excuse?

She is nothing short of a denialist with this kind of nonsensical position.

The truth behind Suu Kyi's position is that she does not want to unsettle the massive Buddhist base that supports her political ambitions.  The murderous Rakhine Buddhists are a significant part of her support and, in effect, if she criticizes their oppression of Rohingya Muslims she would put her ambitions in jeopardy.

The lame excuse that she cannot back either side is laughable.  Her silence backs the Rakhine and the despot state that has the Rohingya in internment/concentration camps.

Suu Kyi knows the issues on the table.  No-one in Burma can claim to be ignorant of the systematic oppression that the Rohingya face.

Suu Kyi is not merely being disingenuous in these terms.  She is in fact perpetuating the myth that there are unknown causes that describe the violence.

And for this reason it is hard not to see Suu Kyi as part of the systematic oppression of Rohingya Muslims.

In the past I have supported the democratic ideals of Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma.  I did so not because it was the popular thing to do but because it was the right thing to do.

But now her position to be selective about her democratic ideals is untenable and undemocratic.

Standing against the slaughter and systematic oppression of the Rohingya is the right thing to do - denying that there is a problem with some flimsy political excuse is not only wrong it is immoral and seriously detracts from her worth to speak on behalf of democratic ideals in Burma or anywhere else.

She should be shamed and lambasted for selling out, and so soon too.

Onward!

Ps. See also "Muslims fleeing sectarian violence in Burma drown as crisis deepens" (Observer, November 4).