Yet to ignore the constraints of the political matrix within which Suu Kyi is operating would be a mistake.
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“Malaysia’s efforts to deliver humanitarian assistance will be more meaningful if the safe zones are immediately realised, as this mechanism ensures better distribution of aid to the victims and provides a strategic platform for the long-term solution of the dragged out humanitarian crisis affecting the Rohingya Muslims”, he said.
Suu Kyi has dismissed the crisis as misinformation helping to promote terrorism, referring to the initial attack on police.
The U.N. says 290,000 Rohingya have fled from Myanmar, the country also known as Burma, into neighboring Bangladesh since August 25.
This statement was markedly different from what the Prime Minister had said in Myanmar – where, with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi by his side, he had praised her “brave leadership” of Myanmar’s peace process, and described the current crisis in Rakhine as “extremist violence”.
The UN says the Rohingya are one of the most persecuted groups in the world.
Fleeing Rohingya accuse the security forces of mass killings and rapes and the burning of hundreds of villages.
Jalandhar: Sikhs living in Melbourne, Australia, on Thursday joined the local Rohingya community protesting against the genocide of their Muslim brethren in Myanmar.
There is also pressure on Dhaka to shelter those stranded in no man’s land at the border.
From this plight and position, Rohingya Muslims can be brought out if the major powers (who claim to be the champions of human rights protection) – America, Russia and China – take a joint and strong stand against the government of Myanmar. “They want 10,000 Bangladeshi taka ($122) to take us”, said one new arrival, bemoaning the price that Bangladeshi fisherman are asking to take them across the river.
The government said it would set up camps for internally displaced people in Rakhine but the move could draw opposition from United Nations humanitarian experts.
Northern Rakhine is predominantly Muslim but Buddhists also live there and in the rest of the state.
About 300,000 Rohingyas are said to have fled Rakhine and sought shelter across the border in Bangladesh in the weeks since the fresh violence.
An ethnic Rakhine villager who emerged from the smoke said police and Rakhine Buddhists had set the fires.
The border guard said some Rohingya have been paying fishermen as much as $250 per person to ferry them across the river on “very risky” boats.
This item has been corrected to show that schoolbooks with text from the Quran, not Qurans, were seen ripped.
Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu has called on Aung San Suu Kyi to end military-led operations against Myanmar’s Rohingya minority.
Joy said the government would have the role of “coordination and facilitation”, but the “assessment, aid delivery and implementation” would all be managed by the Red Cross.
The government of Myanmar blames terrorists for starting the violence.
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Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Myanmar visit that focused on boosting security and economic ties, India on Saturday expressed its “deep concern” about the situation in Rakhine State where security forces have been engaged in a bloody battle against Rohingya insurgents, forcing thousands of people to flee neighbouring Bangladesh and India.
