The Bangladesh government on Sunday rejected comments by Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi suggesting that stateless Muslim Rohingyas may be illegal Bangladeshi migrants.
Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Myanmar's opposition National League for Democracy of Myanmarpictured at Parliament House in New Delhi on November 15, 2012. The Bangladesh government on Sunday rejected comments by Suu Kyi suggesting that stateless Muslim Rohingyas may be illegal Bangladeshi migrants.
Myanmar has been rocked by two outbreaks of fighting between Buddhists and Rohingyas since June that have left 180 people dead and more than 110,000 crammed into makeshift camps.
Suu Kyi said last week that illegal crossing of the shared border with Bangladesh had to be stopped "otherwise there will never be an end to the problem".
The foreign ministry in Dhaka said the Rohingya Muslims have been living in Myanmar's western state of Rakhine for centuries and they could not be Bangladeshi as the country was only founded in 1971.
"The Ministry wishes to express surprise at such comments since these are clearly at variance from the position of the Myanmar Government," it said in a statement.
"There is... no reason to ascribe Bangladesh nationality to these people," it said, adding that since 1971 there had been influxes of Rohingya into Bangladesh from Myanmar due to "internal situations in their homeland".
Suu Kyi has faced criticism for her muted response to the ethnic violence in Myanmar and the displacement of many Rohingyas, who are described by the United Nations as among the world's most persecuted minorities.
Barack Obama will on Monday become the first US president to visit formerly isolated Myanmar, which has recently introduced major political reforms.
By David Eimer, Bangkok
08 Nov 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi has called on Burmese government to send more troops to end the sectarian violence in the west of the country
Four months after tensions between the Muslim Rohingya minority and Buddhists in western Burma's Rakhine State erupted in clashes which have left over 100 people dead and more than 100,000 displaced, Ms Suu Kyi has bowed to the pressure on her to speak out on the violence.
In a joint statement issued with lawmakers from Burma's various ethnic groups, Ms Suu Kyi called on the government to send more troops to the region to ensure peace and stability. The statement also calls for the government to explain its policies towards the Rohingya, as well as for a review of Burma's restrictive citizenship laws, which render the vast majority of the estimated 800,000 Rohingya stateless.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of Burma's opposition has been the subject of rare criticism from human rights groups for her failure to take a stand on the sectarian violence which in the last month alone has left an estimated 30,000 Rohingya homeless. Last weekend, Mrs Suu Kyi again appeared to duck the issue when she said she would not use "moral leadership" to speak out on the plight of the Rohingya.
The reluctance of both Ms Suu Kyi and Burma's President Thein Sein to back the Rohingya has been ascribed to their fear of alienating voters ahead of the 2015 elections. Many Burmese regard the Rohingya as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh, despite evidence suggesting they have been a presence in Rakhine State since the early Nineteenth Century.
The statement, while not mentioning Bangladesh by name, appears to apportion some of the blame for the situation on Dhaka. "Both governments that share common boundaries should respect and take common responsibility for border security and immigration matters," it said. "It is imperative that both countries systematically prevent border crossings."
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is being accused of hypocrisy for refusing to take sides in the ongoing persecution of minority Muslim Rohingyas by majority Buddhist Burmans in the country's northwestern Rakhine state. Chided by a reporter for the British Broadcasting Corporation this past weekend for not using her status as a prodemocracy icon and Nobel Peace Prize laureate to condemn the persecution, Suu Kyi refused to budge.
"I know that people want me to take one side or the other, so both sides are displeased because I will not take a stand with them," she said.
Media and politicians in Muslim countries have been especially quick to accuse Suu Kyi of hypocrisy.
The Organization of Islamic Co-operation has labelled events in Rakhine state "a form of ethnic cleansing."
The organization's foreign ministers will meet in Djibouti next week to put together a program of aid and international political pressure on behalf of the Rohingyas.
Yet, as uncomfortable as it may be to witness the political hedging by Suu Kyi - who spent most of the last 20 years under various forms of detention and whose supporters were slaughtered and imprisoned in large numbers by the military regime - her stance is correct. Since she won election to the new civilian parliament in April, Suu Kyi has been picked to head the assembly's Committee on the Rule of Law and Stability.
This will not only be a key body in plotting the country's course through its still-tenuous transition from military rule to democracy, it will also deal with one of the central issues affecting the Rohingyas.
In 1982, the junta removed the Rohingyas' Burmese citizenship. Since then, they have been banned from travelling within the country without permission. Their lack of citizenship has made them prey to the whims of local military, police and officials.
One of the tasks of Suu Kyi's committee will be the framing of a new citizenship act, including the status of the Rohingyas.
This will affect the central government's relationship not only with the Rohingyas, but with all the other estimated 300 ethnic groups within Burma, many of which have mounted long-running armed insurrections against the military during the past five decades.
It would clearly be inappropriate for Suu Kyi to side with one group or another ahead of her committee's work.
About 200 people, mostly Rohingyas, have been killed, 100,000 displaced and over 10,000 homes burned in two waves of communal violence that started in June and reignited last month.
The violence began after a Rohingya man was accused of raping Rakhine Buddhist women.
The conflict has grown and spread, feeding on the centuries-long communal animosity that always lurks just under the surface in this region.
Efforts by Burma's new civilian president, Thein Sein, to control the situation by declaring a state of emergency and martial law have been only marginally successful.
Rohingya and non-governmental organizations report the soldiers frequently take the sides of the Rakhine Buddhists, and have many times fired indiscriminately on the Muslims.
Thousands of Rohingyas have tried to get over the border with neighbouring predominantly Muslim Bangladesh to join their compatriots in refugee camps.
In 1978, about 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh when the Burmese military tried to expel the entire population from Rakhine state.
In 1990-91, a further 250,000 trekked into Bangladesh when the military launched another campaign against them, including forced labour, summary executions, torture and rape.
Burma's 800,000 Rohingyas have been called by the United Nations "the world's most persecuted minority," but there are now signs of attacks on Muslims spreading to other parts of the country.
This is stoking fears that Burma, which began to emerge from more than 50 years of military rule only last year, faces a widespread conflict with its diverse Muslim community of up to six million people.
These clashes come at a sensitive time, not only for the political transition but also as Burma is trying to attract the foreign investment it so desperately needs after decades of international sanctions against a military junta that left it one of the least-developed countries in Southeast Asia.
The common excuse given by Burmese for persecuting the Rohingyas is that they are aliens imported as labourers by the British from what was Bengal, now Bangladesh.
The truth is a good deal more complex. What is now Rakh-ine state has been a point of friction between the people of South Asia - including the Rohingyas and their ancestors - and the Malay peoples of Southeast Asia for well over 1,000 years.
Rakhine, then called Arakan, was a predominantly Rohingya state within Bengal until 1784 when the army of Burmese king Budapawa invaded and seized the territory.
Many of the Rohingya fled, but returned after the British conquered Burma in 1824.
Since then, there have been countless attempts by the Bur-mans to expel or otherwise remove them.
Sources :The Vancouver Sun
Aung San Suu Kyi has declined to speak out on behalf of Rohingya Muslims and insisted she will not use "moral leadership" to back either side in deadly communal unrest in west Myanmar, reports said.
The Nobel laureate, who has caused disappointment among international supporters for her muted response to violence that has swept Rakhine state, said both Buddhist and Muslim communities were "displeased" that she had not taken their side.
More than 100,000 people have been displaced since June in two major outbreaks of violence in the state, where renewed clashes last month uprooted about 30,000 people.
Dozens have been killed on both sides and thousands of homes torched.
"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," Suu Kyi told the BBC on Saturday.
Speaking in the capital Naypyidaw after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who has said the EU is "deeply concerned" about the violence and its consequences for Myanmar's reforms, Suu Kyi said she could not speak out in favour of the stateless Rohingya.
"I know that people want me to take one side or the other, so both sides are displeased because I will not take a stand with them," she said.
The democracy champion, who is now a member of parliament after dramatic changes overseen by a quasi-civilian regime that took power last year, said the rule of law should be established as a first step before looking into other problems.
"Because if people are killing one another and setting fire to one another's houses, how are we going to come to any kind of reasonable settlement?" she said.
Myanmar's 800,000 Rohingya are seen by the government and many in the country as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh. They face severe discrimination that activists say has led to a deepening alienation.
The Rohingya, who make up the vast majority of those displaced in the fighting, are described by the UN as among the world's most persecuted minorities.
Source : AFP
Where is Suu Kyi's famous 'moral authority' as Muslim Rohingya homes are razed to the ground?
CHIANG MAI - The iconic international image of Burma's charismatic opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is rapidly losing its lustre as she maintains her silence on the continuing violence in her country's westernmost Rakhine State.
The violence began in June, sparked by allegations that a Buddhist girl had been raped by Muslim men. After an uneasy lull, Buddhists again went on the rampage last week, killing more than 100 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority community, who have been suffering severe state persecution for decades.
Aerial photographs taken from the region show large areas of Muslim-populated towns and villages razed to the ground. About 70,000 people have so far lost their homes in the violence.
The Rohingya policy followed by the current government differs little from the discrimination inflicted by the military junta that ruled Burma for the past 50 years. Most Rohingya are regarded as non-Burmese Bengalis and are locked out of Burma's political and social structure and denied fundamental rights guaranteed by citizenship.
"Suu Kyi has lost much of her credibility because of her silence over these appalling events," SOAS University of London researcher Guy Horton told The Week. "Her evasiveness on one of the greatest human rights tragedies in the world today has lost her the commodity she has always had in abundance - her moral authority."
Horton is the author of a report on human rights violations in eastern Burma, Dying Alive, which contributed to the UN Security Council resolution in 2007 'Burma: A Threat to the Peace'.
Veteran Swedish journalist and author Bertil Lintner explained Suu Kyi's dilemma. If she condemned the attacks on Muslims, he told The Week, "many Buddhists - her main constituency - would turn against her. But if she says nothing, she'll lose credibility in the international community.
"She appears to have chosen the latter, and, consequently, criticism against her is growing among international human rights organisations and activists. From her point of view, that may be preferable to having domestic opinion, which is fiercely anti-Rohingya, turn against her."
Lintner, author of several books on Burma, who had talks with Suu Kyi in the Burmese capital Naypyidaw earlier this month, said she was already under pressure at home. "The problem is that her silence on the clashes in Rakhine state as well as the ongoing government military offensive against the Kachins in the north have already cost her a lot of popular support."
There are few Kachins who express any sympathy for Suu Kyi these days, Lintner went on, and even the Shan leader Khun Htun Oo said in an interview while he was in the US last month that she has become "neutralised". Many young Burmese are also becoming critical of her for other reasons, arguing that she has moved far too close to the government and the military.
But does Suu Kyi have any choice, if she wants to win the 2015 election? Guy Horton believes other great leaders "would have reacted differently and grasped the nettle...
"Gandhi, for instance, went on hunger strike to try to stop exactly the kind of horror of what is being inflicted in Rakhine State today. Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King - moral leaders with whom she is compared - would have shown solidarity with the victims and called for passive resistance. Instead, she has just collected prizes - including the US Congressional Medal of Honour - from a fawning world."
In Horton's view, it's no exaggeration to say that what is happening in Rakhine State is similar to the persecution endured by the Jews in 1930s Germany.
"It should be noted that a call by President Thein Sein for the deportation of the Rohingya or their forcible transfer into camps amounts to an incitement to commit a crime against humanity, as defined in the Rome Statute," Horton told The Week.
"In addition, the destructive targeting of a racial/religious group may amount to a form of genocide. The UN Special Rapporteur on Burma should renew his call for an investigation into crimes against humanity in Burma, which are not subject to the whims of political feasibility."
However, Maung Zarni, a Burma expert and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, has a different view, telling the Associated Press: "Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on this. She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She's a politician and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote."
Horton challenged Zarni's view: "If she adopts such a position of cynical Realpolitik the long-term consequences are that she will lose not only her moral credibility, but the support of most ethnic people and possibly the 2015 election itself."
Source : The week UK
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| RFA Aung San Suu Kyi (l) speaks with RFA's Burmese service in Washington, Sept. 18, 2012. |
2012-09-18
Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi says the Rohingya conflict should be resolved through negotiations.
Updated at 6:30 p.m. EST on 2012-09-18
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called Tuesday for the removal of the "roots of hatred" that have fueled the conflict between ethnic Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in western Burma, saying the issue has to be resolved through respect for human rights and rule of law, and negotiations.
"Basically, whenever there is hate, there is fear. So, hate and fear are very closely related. You have to remove the roots of hatred—that is to say you have to address these issues that make people insecure and that make people threatened," she told RFA's Burmese service in an interview.
"Whenever people talk about conflict resolution, whatever kind of advice they give, there is one that is unavoidable—you have to talk to one another, you have to negotiate, you have to sort out your problems through speech rather than violence," she said.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized by rights groups for not speaking out more forcefully on the Rohingya issue following bloody violence between the Rohingya and Rakhine communities in Rakhine state in June, which killed 80 people and left tens of thousands displaced.
The clashes had sparked international allegations that human rights violations were being committed against the Rohingya, who the United Nations says are the world's most oppressed group. The Burmese authorities do not regard them as an ethnic group even though they have lived for generations in the country.
Last week, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama told students in India that he had written to Aung San Suu Kyi about the Rohingya issue but did not receive a response.
"We wrote a letter to Suu Kyi regarding the violence but we got no reply. My representative in [New] Delhi even met the Burmese Ambassador here but it has been four weeks and we have not heard from them. There is no channel for us to approach," the Dalai Lama said, according to the Press Trust of India.
Silence
In an indirect reference to her relative silence on the Rohingya issue, Aung San Suu Kyi said earlier that many did not realize that her National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party in parliament, was not in the government.
She said that the NLD is not in a "position to decide what we do and how we operate because we are not a government."
"This needs to be understood by those who wish the NLD to do more."
Aung San Suu Kyi, who arrived on Monday for a nearly three-week U.S. visit, also explained that her NLD gives top priority to human rights and the rule of the law in any resolution of the conflict, noting that such differences are a universal problem and not confined to Burma only.
"I have always said—this is the policy of my party—that human rights and rule of law are necessary in order to bring down tensions in such a situation."
"But in the long run, you have to build up harmony between the communities through understanding, through exchange."
She also stressed that human rights should be applied to "everybody and equally" to all groups.
"To ignore either human rights or rule of law or to insist on human rights and pretend rule of law is another matter will not work. These two have to go together."
Aung San Suu Kyi also said that her NLD party wants to help the government to end the crisis in Rakhine state.
"We [the NLD] do not want to make political capital out of the situation in Rakhine state. We want to give the government all the opportunities it needs to defuse the situation there," she said earlier when speaking at a Washington forum organized by the Asia Society.
"We want to help the government in any way possible to bring about peace in Rakhine state."
'Great concern'
Two weeks ago, the United States expressed “great concern” over the humanitarian situation in Rakhine state, following a visit by the American ambassador to the area.
"Broad swathes of both communities have been affected, and the humanitarian situation remains of great concern,” the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon said in a statement after the visit by a group led by newly appointed Ambassador Derek Mitchell and senior State Department official Joseph Yun.
“Going forward, it will be important to address the urgent needs, while also laying the groundwork for a long-term, sustainable and just solution” to the conflict, the embassy said.
Burmese President Thein Sein recently suggested that the Rohingyas should be deported, raising an outcry from rights groups. Thousands of Buddhist monks took to the streets to back his call and protest against the Rohingyas.
Aung San Suu Kyi also touched on the following subjects in her interview with RFA:
Transition to democracy:
Asked what her biggest concern was during the current transition in Burma, she said, “My great concern is to empower the people to be able to build the kind of society they want. That is what democracy means,” she said.
Consensus building:
Burma, she said, suffered a setback during years under a poor education system and has more work to do to build up a “healthy political culture” in which people are willing to compromise, she said.
“We are weak when it comes to negotiated compromise. It’s not part of our society or culture.”
But she said that the people were learning quickly. “If we had not been capable of negotiated compromise, we would not be where we are now.”
Speculations that Thein Sein will win the next Nobel Peace Prize:
Asked if Thein Sein could be awarded the next Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading Burma’s reforms since his government came to power last March, she said she had not heard it was a possibility.
“I don’t believe in engaging in speculation,” she said.
In her remarks at the Asia Society, she also spoke on:
2010 elections held by the previous military junta:
She said that the opposition had “grave doubts” about how the government conducted the 2010 elections, which were widely seen as “deeply flawed.”
The NLD had been banned for boycotting the 2010 elections, but the reformist President Thein Sein allowed the party to re-register after his nominally-civilian government took power in March last year.
Concerns over the Constitution framed by the junta:
Aung San Suu Kyi criticized the current government for requiring new members of parliament from her party to swear to promise to protect the 2008 constitution which “we felt was not conducive to the building of a genuine democratic society.”
The constitution guaranteed that the military would maintain a chokehold on the parliament.
Easing of sanctions:
"I do support the easing of sanctions because I think that our people must start to take responsibility for their own destiny," she said.
"We should not depend on U.S. sanctions to keep up the momentum for democracy. We have got to work at it ourselves."
Containing China:
“It does not mean that because the U.S. is engaging with Burma it should in any way be seen as a hostile step towards China,” she said. China was a key ally of Burma during the decades of military rule.
“We can use our new situation to strengthen relations between all three countries. For us—to put it very simply—it would be to our advantage for the U.S. and China to establish friendly relations.”
Reported by Nyein Shwe for RFA's Burmese service. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai, Joshua Lipes and Rachel Vandenbrink.
Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi says the Rohingya conflict should be resolved through negotiations.
Updated at 6:30 p.m. EST on 2012-09-18
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called Tuesday for the removal of the "roots of hatred" that have fueled the conflict between ethnic Rakhines and Muslim Rohingyas in western Burma, saying the issue has to be resolved through respect for human rights and rule of law, and negotiations.
"Basically, whenever there is hate, there is fear. So, hate and fear are very closely related. You have to remove the roots of hatred—that is to say you have to address these issues that make people insecure and that make people threatened," she told RFA's Burmese service in an interview.
"Whenever people talk about conflict resolution, whatever kind of advice they give, there is one that is unavoidable—you have to talk to one another, you have to negotiate, you have to sort out your problems through speech rather than violence," she said.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized by rights groups for not speaking out more forcefully on the Rohingya issue following bloody violence between the Rohingya and Rakhine communities in Rakhine state in June, which killed 80 people and left tens of thousands displaced.
The clashes had sparked international allegations that human rights violations were being committed against the Rohingya, who the United Nations says are the world's most oppressed group. The Burmese authorities do not regard them as an ethnic group even though they have lived for generations in the country.
Last week, exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama told students in India that he had written to Aung San Suu Kyi about the Rohingya issue but did not receive a response.
"We wrote a letter to Suu Kyi regarding the violence but we got no reply. My representative in [New] Delhi even met the Burmese Ambassador here but it has been four weeks and we have not heard from them. There is no channel for us to approach," the Dalai Lama said, according to the Press Trust of India.
Silence
In an indirect reference to her relative silence on the Rohingya issue, Aung San Suu Kyi said earlier that many did not realize that her National League for Democracy (NLD), the main opposition party in parliament, was not in the government.
She said that the NLD is not in a "position to decide what we do and how we operate because we are not a government."
"This needs to be understood by those who wish the NLD to do more."
Aung San Suu Kyi, who arrived on Monday for a nearly three-week U.S. visit, also explained that her NLD gives top priority to human rights and the rule of the law in any resolution of the conflict, noting that such differences are a universal problem and not confined to Burma only.
"I have always said—this is the policy of my party—that human rights and rule of law are necessary in order to bring down tensions in such a situation."
"But in the long run, you have to build up harmony between the communities through understanding, through exchange."
She also stressed that human rights should be applied to "everybody and equally" to all groups.
"To ignore either human rights or rule of law or to insist on human rights and pretend rule of law is another matter will not work. These two have to go together."
Aung San Suu Kyi also said that her NLD party wants to help the government to end the crisis in Rakhine state.
"We [the NLD] do not want to make political capital out of the situation in Rakhine state. We want to give the government all the opportunities it needs to defuse the situation there," she said earlier when speaking at a Washington forum organized by the Asia Society.
"We want to help the government in any way possible to bring about peace in Rakhine state."
'Great concern'
Two weeks ago, the United States expressed “great concern” over the humanitarian situation in Rakhine state, following a visit by the American ambassador to the area.
"Broad swathes of both communities have been affected, and the humanitarian situation remains of great concern,” the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon said in a statement after the visit by a group led by newly appointed Ambassador Derek Mitchell and senior State Department official Joseph Yun.
“Going forward, it will be important to address the urgent needs, while also laying the groundwork for a long-term, sustainable and just solution” to the conflict, the embassy said.
Burmese President Thein Sein recently suggested that the Rohingyas should be deported, raising an outcry from rights groups. Thousands of Buddhist monks took to the streets to back his call and protest against the Rohingyas.
Aung San Suu Kyi also touched on the following subjects in her interview with RFA:
Transition to democracy:
Asked what her biggest concern was during the current transition in Burma, she said, “My great concern is to empower the people to be able to build the kind of society they want. That is what democracy means,” she said.
Consensus building:
Burma, she said, suffered a setback during years under a poor education system and has more work to do to build up a “healthy political culture” in which people are willing to compromise, she said.
“We are weak when it comes to negotiated compromise. It’s not part of our society or culture.”
But she said that the people were learning quickly. “If we had not been capable of negotiated compromise, we would not be where we are now.”
Speculations that Thein Sein will win the next Nobel Peace Prize:
Asked if Thein Sein could be awarded the next Nobel Peace Prize for spearheading Burma’s reforms since his government came to power last March, she said she had not heard it was a possibility.
“I don’t believe in engaging in speculation,” she said.
In her remarks at the Asia Society, she also spoke on:
2010 elections held by the previous military junta:
She said that the opposition had “grave doubts” about how the government conducted the 2010 elections, which were widely seen as “deeply flawed.”
The NLD had been banned for boycotting the 2010 elections, but the reformist President Thein Sein allowed the party to re-register after his nominally-civilian government took power in March last year.
Concerns over the Constitution framed by the junta:
Aung San Suu Kyi criticized the current government for requiring new members of parliament from her party to swear to promise to protect the 2008 constitution which “we felt was not conducive to the building of a genuine democratic society.”
The constitution guaranteed that the military would maintain a chokehold on the parliament.
Easing of sanctions:
"I do support the easing of sanctions because I think that our people must start to take responsibility for their own destiny," she said.
"We should not depend on U.S. sanctions to keep up the momentum for democracy. We have got to work at it ourselves."
Containing China:
“It does not mean that because the U.S. is engaging with Burma it should in any way be seen as a hostile step towards China,” she said. China was a key ally of Burma during the decades of military rule.
“We can use our new situation to strengthen relations between all three countries. For us—to put it very simply—it would be to our advantage for the U.S. and China to establish friendly relations.”
Reported by Nyein Shwe for RFA's Burmese service. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai, Joshua Lipes and Rachel Vandenbrink.
Read more here
 |
| On the eve of a visit to the US to accept Washington's highest honour, Aung San Suu Kyi faces accusations of ignoring the plight of Burma's Rohingya minority. Photo: AFP |
Lindsay Murdoch, Bangkok
Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be awarded Washington's highest honour next week amid criticism she has failed to speak up for almost one million persecuted Rohingya Muslims living in her country.
Ms Suu Kyi, 67, will receive the Congressional Gold Medal for enduring more than 20 years of personal denigration and 15 years of house arrest as she became the voice of Burma's downtrodden.
But human rights groups and some academics have expressed disappointment the mother of two who took a seat in Burma's military-dominated Parliament in July has dodged questions on the plight of the Rohingya, stateless people who are widely reviled by Burma's Buddhist majority.
One Scottish academic has even suggested she return her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
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Ms Suu Kyi is likely to be pressed on her views about the Rohingya during her first trip to the US since she was put under house arrest by Burma's generals in 1990.
But diplomats say she would face a backlash from Burmese Buddhists, including many of her own supporters, if she was to express support for the Rohingya.
Monks who had been long-time pro-democracy advocates took to the streets of Burma's second largest city Mandalay for three days last week to demand the Rohingya be deported.
Since bloody clashes erupted between Rohingya and Arakan Buddhists in Burma's western Arakan state in June - leaving an estimated 100,000 people displaced and at least 78 dead - Ms Suu Kyi has given only scripted answers about the bloodshed to journalists, referring to the need for a “rule of law”.
She has declined to say whether the Rohingya, who under a 1982 law are treated as non-citizens, should be granted citizenship.
The Rohingya, who speak a Bengali dialect and tend to have darker complexions than Burmese, are classified as immigrants from Bangladesh despite having lived in Burma for centuries.
They face restrictions on their movement, access to education and employment and are denied other basic rights.
Many would face possible starvation without the intervention of United Nations agencies.
Burma's President Thein Sein, a former general who has won praise for introducing democratic reforms in his country, said in July the “only solution” is for the Rohingya to leave Burma.
“We will send them away if any third country would accept them,” he said.
Burma's treatment of the Rohingya has prompted criticism from many Muslim groups and nations, including Malaysia and Indonesia.
A US delegation that returned on Monday from a two-day tour of areas of Arakan affected by the sectarian violence said it had “great concern” about the situation there.
“Broad swathes of both communities have been affected and the humanitarian situation remains of great concern,” said a statement from the US embassy in Rangoon.
Phil Robertson, who oversees the work of Human Rights Watch in Asia, said the international community rightly looks to Ms Suu Kyi as a beacon of light and moral authority in Burma.
“We encourage her to speak up and take a leadership role on the situation in Arakan,” he said.
About 300,000 Rohingya who have fled the Burma violence are living in Bangladesh, many of them in squalid camps where Bangladesh has restricted aid.
When the violence broke out in June, Bangladesh closed its border and pushed an unknown number of boats carrying men, women and children back out to sea, Human Rights Watch says. Their fate is unknown.
There are fears that when the monsoon season ends within weeks many Rohingya in Bangladesh will attempt dangerous voyages to Malaysia, where tens of thousands of them already there are waiting to be resettled in third countries like Australia.
Thailand has a policy to intercept boats carrying Rohingya at sea and provide them with fuel, water and food but not to allow them to land on its shores.
Thailand has previously towed Rohingya boats which have landed on its shores back out to sea, causing the deaths of hundreds of people.
Ms Suu Kyi leaves for the US on Sunday.
Source here
FOR the first time anyone could remember, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has become the subject of criticism by the same pro-democracy advocates in the international community who have supported her and helped her rise into prominence on the world stage.
The sudden backlash came undone following her continuous dodging of the issue involving the systematic oppression and violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority by the Myanmar government.
Suu Kyi, who won the adoration of many human right advocates worldwide for championing democracy in strife-torn Myanmar, uncharacteristically chose the ‘safe way out’ when asked on her response on the routine discrimination against the Rohingya including the government’s refusal to grant them citizenship despite having lived in Burma for generations.
At a recent news conference held with singer Bono of rock band U2 in Dublin, she said, “The root of the problem is lack of rule of law (in Myanmar).”
Asked whether the Rohingya should be granted Myanmar citizenship, Suu Kyi replied curtly: “I don’t know.”
The news report from UK daily The Independent also described her responses to the issue at hand as “vague” and “scripted”.
Forsaking Democracy for Majority Buddhist Vote
No one except perhaps her closest supporters would have thought ‘The Lady’, who became widely known as the voice of Myanmar's downtrodden, would turn a blind eye on the plight of the Rohingya following the intensified conflict between the Muslim minority and Buddhist Rakhine in the last few months.
The Oxford-educated political activist-turned politician, who has been placed under house arrest for a total of 15 of the past 21 years since she began her political career, is apparently willing to forsake being labeled a hypocrite by the international community for political gain. Analysts say many of her political allies themselves vehemently oppose the Rohingya hence speaking out on the matter would only risk alienating the former and, ultimately, the Buddhist voters who make up the majority in Myanmar.
“She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She's a politician and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote,” said a Myanmar expert and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, Maung Zarni.
Plight of the Rohingya
Fighting between Buddhists and Muslims in the western coast state of Rakhine has left about 87 people from both sides dead since June, according to an official estimates, although rights groups fear the real toll is much higher. According to reports, the two groups attacked each other with spears and machetes and went on rampages burning homes and razing entire villages.
The Rohingya, who have been described as “among the world’s least wanted” and “one of the world’s most persecuted minorities”, have continued to suffer from human rights violations under the Burmese junta since 1978. They have been stripped of their citizenship since a 1982 citizenship law. They are also not allowed to travel without official permission, are banned from owning land and are required to sign a commitment to have not more than two children.
The government has been blamed by rights groups which claimed it did little to stop the violence in Rakhine initially before turning its security forces on the Rohingya with targeted killings, rapes, mass arrests and torture. Human Rights Watch which estimated that 100,000 people were displaced by the fighting has accused Burmese forces of opening fire on Rohingya. The New York-based organization also claimed that the government’s tally of 78 dead is “undoubtedly conservative.”
Last weekend, the government finally appointed a 27-member commission to look into the causes of the conflict and to propose solutions to the community mistrust between Muslims and Buddhists.
News reports claimed that the recent violence in Rakhine was initially triggered by allegations that a gang of Rohingya men had raped a local Arakanese woman. Apparently, the lynching of ten Muslims in response sparked days of rioting in the state formerly known as Arakan.
However, the tension between the immigrant minorities, namely from India, and majority Burmese have existed since the early part of last century. According to historian Thant Myint-U, the growing resentment against the minorities was due to the huge influx of Indian immigrants that resulted in the settlers outnumbering the Burmese (hence the two children per family restriction).
"At the beginning of the 20th century, Indians were arriving in Burma at the rate of no less than a quarter million per year. The numbers rose steadily until the peak year of 1927, immigration reached 480,000 people, with Rangoon exceeding New York City as the greatest immigration port in the world. This was out of a total population of only 13 million; it was equivalent to the United Kingdom today taking 2 million people a year." By then, in most of the largest cities in Burma, Rangoon (Yangon), Akyab (Sittwe), Bassein (Pathein), Moulmein, the Indian immigrants formed a majority of the population. The Burmese under the British rule felt helpless, and reacted with a "racism that combined feelings of superiority and fear."
The World Finally Responds
The long-standing conflict between the Rohingya Muslims and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists finally caught the attention of the international community following recent violence in Rakhine after decades of systematic persecution of the Rohingya. Various human rights, pro-democracy groups and Muslim nations have voiced deep concerns over the treatment of the stateless group.
The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned the violence at an emergency summit recently and said it will present its concerns to the upcoming United Nations General Assembly. At the summit, Saudi Arabia accused Myanmar of launching an "ethnic cleansing campaign" and King Abdullah announced that he would donate US$50 million in aid to the Rohingya in Myanmar. Meanwhile, Islamic hardliners in Indonesia and Pakistan have threatened attacks against the Myanmar government.
Democracy vs Hypocrisy
Sadly, the outrage against the persecution of the Rohingya stops at Myanmar's borders. As a politician, Suu Kyi is playing a different ballgame now that her opposition party is trying to consolidate political gains attained after they entered Parliament for the first time in April.
Suu Kyi is well aware that speaking out for the Rohingya is the right thing to do but Myanmar’s Buddhist majority appear to have resentment against these stateless Muslim minority. According to The Associated Press, the Rohingya are a deeply unpopular cause inside Burma, where much of the country's majority Buddhist population views them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. Not only that, the Muslim minority have also been labeled as terrorists.
On the first day of the Muslim Eid ul-Fitr celebration, up to 100 ethnic Rakhine held a rally near a regional parliament building in Rangoon to protest against the UN and various non-government organizations’ for providing assistance to the Rohingya . The protesters held signs and banners that said: “Stop Creating Conflicts” and “Don't Bring Terrorists to Our Land.”
Myanmar and the rest of the world are aware that if there was anyone who could effectively take on the Rohingya cause it would be Suu Kyi. However, the problem for Suu Kyi is, how would she, as the most celebrated champion of democracy and human rights, justify hatred towards a certain ethnic minority, especially in these day and age. Any attempt to do so will not only not fly well with the international community which will won’t hesitate to condemn her for being a hypocrite, it could also potentially have repercussions on her vote counts come election in 2015.
Christians Also Targeted
It also appears as if the widespread resentment against minorities has been deeply imbedded in the psyche of the Burmese population and, apparently, the Muslims are not the only ones being targeted. According to the Chin Human Rights Organization’s (CHRO) latest report, ‘Threats to Our Existence: Persecution of Ethnic Chin Christians in Burma’, there exist “a serious ongoing human rights violations, even as the government claims to deepen its reforms in the country.”
“For years, state-sanctioned deep-rooted discrimination against the Chin on the dual basis of their ethnicity and religion has given rise to widespread and systematic violations of fundamental human rights, particularly religious freedom. … the Chin continue to be denied religious freedom and are targeted for induced and coerced conversion to Buddhism, in pursuance of an unwritten State policy of forced assimilation.”
All eyes are on Suu Kyi now as the world waits for her to come out with an unequivocal stand over the Rohingya issue. People want to know what the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader has to say about being selective in her championing of democracy and human rights.
So far, as the world sees it, Suu Kyi has failed to live up to her stature as one of the world's most celebrated pro-democracy campaigners. To the dismay of many, she may well be an angel in disguise who is the lesser of two evils.
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| Suu Kyi says the Nobel Peace Prize she won while under house arrest 21-years ago helped to shatter her sense of isolation |
They suffer appalling violence and discrimination, but so far Aung San Suu Kyi has been notably silent on their plight
20 AUGUST 2012
Aung San Suu Kyi's continued silence on the plight of Burma's Rohingya Muslims is sparking concern that the Nobel Peace Prize winner is failing to live up to her stature as one of the world's most celebrated pro-democracy campaigners.
Scores of people have been killed and tens of thousands have been made homeless during three months of inter-communal rioting between Buddhist and Muslim gangs in western Burma. Although there have been deaths on all sides, the Rohingya Muslims have been hit disproportionately hard in a state where they are already routinely discriminated against.
Throughout her two decades in jail and under house arrest, Ms Suu Kyi earned herself worldwide adoration for her refusal to bend to Burma's military junta and her steadfast criticism of all human rights abuses inside her country.
But "The Lady" has remained uncharacteristically silent on the persecution of Burma's Rohingya, knowing that speaking out would risk alienating many of her political allies who are vehemently opposed to them.
Diplomats and human rights groups have grown increasingly dismayed by her silence. One senior British minister told The Independent: "Frankly, I would expect her to provide moral leadership on this subject but she hasn't really spoken about it at all. She has great moral authority in Burma and while it might be politically difficult for her to take a supportive stance towards the Rohingya, it is the right thing to do."
During her visit to Britain in June, the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, privately urged Ms Suu Kyi to take a more proactive role in seeking reconciliation. The Independent understands that the matter was raised again by officials in Rangoon after Ms Suu Kyi was appointed chair of a committee dealing with the rule of law, peace and security. But so far their pleadings have fallen on deaf ears.
The Rohingya are a deeply unpopular cause inside Burma, where much of the country's majority Buddhist population view them as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The UN tells a different story and describes them as among the world's most persecuted people. Despite having lived in Burma for generations they are denied citizenship, need permission to marry or have more than two children and must notify the authorities if they wish to travel outside their villages.
Such policies were enforced by Burma's military but there is also little support for the Rohingya among Burma's pro-democracy opposition groups, with some of the so-called Generation 88 leaders among the most outspoken Rohingya critics.
Western Burma has long simmered with inter-ethnic tensions between the region's 800,000 Rohingya and their Arakanese Buddhist neighbours, but things came to a head in early June following a spate of tit-for-tat killings. The violence was initially sparked by allegations that a gang of Rohingya men had raped an Arakanese woman. Ten Muslims were lynched in response, sparking days of rioting. There have been strong suggestions that Burma's security forces actively encouraged – or at least turned a blind eye – as Rohingya were burned out of their homes. Journalists who have recently travelled there say the Rohingya have suffered the worst of the violence, with scores killed and an estimated 68,000 living in appalling conditions after they were forced out of their homes.
Whether Ms Suu Kyi will heed calls to use her influence in stemming the violence is difficult to predict.
"Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on this," Maung Zarni, a Burma expert and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, told the Associated Press. "She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She's a politician and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote."
Anna Roberts, the executive director of Burma Campaign UK, said: "This is an incredibly serious situation and it continues to deteriorate at a very fast rate.
"There has not been anything like the international response that would be expected for a crisis on this scale."
Rohingya: The persecuted
For more than 30 years the Burmese government has denied citizenship to the 800,000 Rohingya people living within its borders, leaving them without a country of their own and leading the UN to describe them as one of the world's most persecuted minorities.
Legend holds that they are the descendants of Arab traders shipwrecked on the coast of Burma in the 8th century, and their dispersal across southeast Asia points to some kind of seafaring heritage in centuries past. Now, thanks to their language—a Bengali dialect similar to one spoken in southeast Bangladesh—the Rohingya are seen as illegal immigrants by Rangoon and many ordinary Burmese, prompting many to attempt to flee to third countries in rickety boats.
Tens of thousands have sought refuge in makeshift camps along the border with Bangladesh following clashes with Buddhist locals, sparked by reports that an Arakan Buddhist woman had been raped by three Rohingya men.
Source here
August 16, 2012
BANGKOK — She is known as the voice of Myanmar's downtrodden but there is one oppressed group that Aung San Suu Kyi does not want to discuss.
For weeks, Suu Kyi has dodged questions on the plight of a Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, prompting rare criticism of the woman whose struggle for democracy and human rights in Myanmar have earned her a Nobel Peace Prize, and adoration worldwide.
Human rights groups have expressed disappointment, noting that the United Nations has referred to the Rohingya – widely reviled by the Buddhist majority in Myanmar – as among the most persecuted people on Earth. They say Suu Kyi could play a crucial role in easing the hatred in Myanmar and in making the world pay more attention to the Rohingya.
Analysts and activists say that Suu Kyi's stance marks a new phase in her career: The former political prisoner is now a more calculating politician who is choosing her causes carefully.
"Politically, Aung San Suu Kyi has absolutely nothing to gain from opening her mouth on this," said Maung Zarni, a Myanmar expert and visiting fellow at the London School of Economics. "She is no longer a political dissident trying to stick to her principles. She's a politician and her eyes are fixed on the prize, which is the 2015 majority Buddhist vote."
The Rohingya have been denied citizenship even though many of their families have lived in Myanmar for generations. The U.N. estimates that 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar where they face heavy-handed restrictions: They need permission to marry, have more than two children and travel outside of their villages.
Myanmar considers the Rohingya to be illegal migrants from Bangladesh but Bangladesh also rejects them, rendering them stateless.
Long-standing resentment between the Muslim Rohingya and Rakhine Buddhists erupted in bloody fury in western Rakhine state in June. They attacked each other with spears and machetes and went on rampages burning homes and razing entire villages. Human Rights Watch estimates that 100,000 people were displaced by the fighting and says the government's tally of 78 dead is "undoubtedly conservative."
Rights groups claim the government did little to stop the violence initially and then turned its security forces on the Rohingya with targeted killings, rapes, mass arrests and torture.
Most of the world's outrage has come from the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia has accused Myanmar of launching an "ethnic cleansing campaign" and King Abdullah announced Saturday he would donate $50 million in aid to the Rohingya in Myanmar. Islamic hard-liners in Indonesia and Pakistan have threatened attacks against the Myanmar government.
The 57-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the violence at a summit this week and said it will present its concerns to the upcoming U.N. General Assembly.
But the outrage stops at Myanmar's borders. A tide of nationalist sentiment against the Rohingya has put Suu Kyi in a no-win situation.
Speaking up for the Rohingya would risk alienating Myanmar's Buddhist majority and angering the government at a time when Suu Kyi and her opposition party are trying to consolidate political gains attained after they entered Parliament for the first time in April.
By not speaking up, she has offended some of her staunchest supporters in the international community – the very groups who lobbied tirelessly for her freedom during 15 years of house arrest. Though, many are cautious about directly criticizing Suu Kyi, who is hailed as a human rights superhero and often called the Gandhi of this generation.
Phil Robertson of Human Rights Watch called it "unfortunate" that Suu Kyi did not confront the issue during her triumphant tour of Europe in June, shortly after the violence occurred.
At news conferences in Geneva, Dublin and Paris, Suu Kyi dodged journalists' questions about the Rohingya by giving vague, scripted answers about a need for "rule of law" in Myanmar.
"The root of the problem is lack of rule of law," Suu Kyi said in Dublin, seated beside the rock star Bono at a news conference.
Asked if the Rohingya should be granted Myanmar citizenship, the Oxford-educated Suu Kyi replied: "I don't know."
Canadian-based academic Abid Bahar, a Bangladesh-born expert on Myanmar's ethnic groups, said he was "shocked" by Suu Kyi's failure to take a more principled stand.
"As a Nobel Peace Prize winner she has a big role to play, to work as a conscience for humanity, which she has ignored," Bahar said. "I thought she was the only person the Rohingya could depend on."
President Thein Sein's popularity at home has surged since the June crackdown, analysts say. Many in Myanmar rallied behind his proposal in July to send all of Myanmar's Rohingya to any country "willing to take them," a suggestion quickly shot down by the U.N. refugee agency.
"This is an unexpected difficulty that we have faced in our march to democracy," Thein Sein said in an interview with Voice of America broadcast this week. He denied accusations of genocide from Muslim countries, saying that images posted online showing piles of bodies were "fabrications" and from "incidents that happened in other countries, not here."
Thein Sein has won widespread praise for introducing a wave of reforms since taking office last year, following decades of repressive rule. But the United Nations and others say the violence in Rakhine state shows Myanmar still has a long way to go, and needs to place human rights at the top of its reforms.
"The situation in (Rakhine) state is giving the so-called new Burma a black eye – in the eyes of the international community," said Robertson of Human Rights Watch.
"As a political leader with moral authority, Suu Kyi should take this on," he said. "No one is saying she can dictate policy to the government, but if she speaks out everyone will pay attention."
Associated Press writer Xinyan Yu contributed to this report.
Source here
Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, is facing a backlash from fellow pro-democracy campaigners who are dismayed at her refusal to speak out against abuses being committed by her country's military.
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| Aung San Suu Kyi, third from right, arrives at Myanmar Lower House to attend a regular session of Parliament Photo: AP |
Activists who supported the world famous symbol of human rights through her years of imprisonment and isolation accuse her of staying silent on the most pressing human rights issue in Burma today – the treatment of the Rohingya, a stateless group identified by the United Nations as one of the most persecuted minorities anywhere.
Critics contend that she has consistently dodged the subject throughout eight weeks of strife in Rakhine state in western Burma, where hundreds of people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced from their homes.
There have been consistent reports of army beatings, acts of intimidation and extra judicial killings of the Rohingya, who are Muslim.
Her refusal to criticise President Thein Sein, a former military general, for endorsing policies that could be seen as recommending ethnic cleansing have caused particular consternation.
Thin Sein said the 800,000 Rohingya population should be put in camps and sent across the border to Bangladesh.
“It’s disappointing, she is in a difficult position, but people have been disappointed she hasn’t been more outspoken,” said Anna Roberts, executive director of the Burma Campaign UK.
“She passed up opportunities to say good things on this,” said Brad Adams, Asia director of Human Rights Watch.
“This was all blowing up when she was travelling in Europe and she didn’t confront it,” he added, referring to her recent foreign tour when the Nobel laureate was feted in London, Dublin, Paris and Oslo.
The sweeping and rapid reforms that have seen Ms Suu Kyi take a seat in parliament have also eased censorship laws, exposing deep levels of resentment towards the Rohingya and Muslims among the majority Buddhist ethnic Burmese population.
Some activists said it was unclear if the Nobel Peace Laureate shared commonly held prejudices towards the dark-skinned minority from the subcontinent, who first migrated from Bengal centuries ago.
“One has to be suspicious or concerned about what her views are,” said Mr Adams. “It’s very hard to know what she thinks.”
In her first parliamentary speech this week Ms Suu Kyi cited the importance of protecting minority rights, but that was widely regarded as referring to larger Buddhist groups such as the Karen and Shan.
Maung Zarni, a Burmese academic who was on a panel with her at the London School of Economics in June, said: “She has been very non-committal on the issue of the Rohingya.”
Other victims of Burma’s military regime who had been released from prison only to show a “shocking” level of racial prejudice against Muslims, he said.
“Pro-democracy crowds are also cut from the same racist ideological fabric” as the military-dominated government, he added. There have been reports that Buddhist monks in Rakhine have distributed pamphlets urging boycotts of Muslim traders and shops.
When asked about the Rohingya issue, Ms Suu Kyi has vaguely referred to the need for the “rule of law”, or for a clear immigration law, which critics say suggests she sees the Muslim group as immigrants rather than citizens. The Rohingya have never been granted Burmese citizenship and a 1982 law excluded from the list of officially-recognised minorities.
As Ms Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy look ahead to elections in 2015, analysts have said that expressing support for the Muslim minority would be politically calamitous.
Mr Adams and others disagree. “This is an unequivocal issue, it’s something where clarity is needed. She is such an icon, she could bring a lot of public opinion with her if she went after the issue,” he said.
Source here
Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi told an LSE audience that fairness and freedom can only be restored to her country under the rule of law.
Speaking on her first visit to the UK for 24 years, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said that unity in Burma and a new constitution could only be achieved within a legal framework. “This is what we all need - unless we see that justice is to be done, we cannot proceed to genuine democracy”, she told an audience of students, staff and visitors.
She said that she condemned violence wherever it occurred, but that a full understanding of its causes was key: “Resolving conflict is not about condemnation, it’s about finding the roots, the causes of that conflict and how they can be resolved in the best way possible.”
The leader of the National League of Democracy in Burma, who has spent much of her life under house arrest on the orders of the country’s military rulers, was speaking as part of a round-table discussion at LSE featuring academic and legal experts.
LSE Director Judith Rees reminded listeners that the event was taking place on Aung San Suu Kyi’s 67th birthday and that everyone wanted to celebrate that she was able to enjoy the day in freedom.
Professor Rees said: “Your trip to the UK will go down in history and I’m sure that it’s an emotional trip for you.”
She also invited the crowd to sing Happy Birthday, adding: “It’s a tribute not just to you but to all those who have campaigned for freedom in Burma.”
Alex Peters-Day, General Secretary of LSE’s Students’ Union, presented the guest with a surprise present - a photograph of her late father taken in London in 1947 - and with an LSE baseball cap, a traditional gift for visiting leaders.
The panel discussion also involved LSE professors Mary Kaldor and Christine Chinkin, Burmese activist and visiting fellow Dr Maung Zarni, Oxford professor Nicola Lacey and barrister Sir Geoffrey Nice QC.
Professor Kaldor ended the event by passing on a question from a student who’d asked Aung San Suu Kyi how she had found her strength to continue her campaigning. She answered: “It’s all of you, and people like you, who give me the strength to continue. And I suppose I have a stubborn streak in me.”
Speaker(s): Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Professor Christine Chinkin, Professor Nicola Lacey, Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, Dr Maung Zarni
Recorded on 19 June 2012 in Peacock Theatre, Portugal Street.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is Chairman of the National League for Democracy (NLD) and Member of Parliament of Kawhmu constituency in Burma. She was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991.
Christine Chinkin, FBA, is currently Professor in International Law at the London School of Economics. She has widely published on issues of international human rights law, law, including as co-author of The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis.
Nicola Lacey holds a Senior Research Fellowship at All Souls College, and is Professor of Criminal Law and Legal Theory at the University of Oxford, having previously held a chair at the London School of Economics. Nicola’s research is in criminal law and criminal justice, with a particular focus on comparative and historical scholarship. In 2011 she won the Hans Sigrist Prize for scholarship on the rule of law in modern societies.
Sir Geoffrey Nice QC is a barrister; he is a signatory of Harvard’s Crimes in Burma report. Sir Geoffrey is a member of Burma Justice Committee and works with NGO's and other groups seeking international recognition of crimes committed in conflicts; represents government and similar interests at the ICC.
A Burmese native, Dr Zarni is a veteran founder of the Free Burma Coalition, one of the Internet's first and largest human rights campaigns and a Visiting Fellow at the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit, LSE. His forthcoming book, provisionally titled Life under the Boot: 50-years of Military Dictatorship in Burma, will be published by Yale University Press.
Mary Kaldor is professor of Global Governance in the Department of International Development and Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit at LSE. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.
လူထုေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ Amnesty International ရဲ့ 2009ခုႏွစ္က ခ်ီးျမွင့္တဲ့ Ambassador of Conscience Award အား လက္ခံရယူစဥ္ (ရုပ္/သံ)
After more than 20 years of house arrest in Myanmar. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was final able to travel to Dublin to receive Amnety Internationals highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. Secretary General was in Ireland to give the award with other notable attendees. Aung San Suu Kyi later addressing the crowds who came to enjoy the occasion.
Amnesty International's Ambassador of Conscience award ဆုေပးပြဲသို႕တက္ေရာက္လာေသာ ဂ်ိမ္းစ္ဘြန္း 007 မင္းသားၾကီး Roger Moore နဲ႕ဇနီး
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ဟာ Dublin’s Freedom of the City (ဒပ္ဘလင္ ျမိဳ႕ေတာ္ရဲ႕ လြတ္ေျမာက္ေရး) ဆုကို ကိုုယ္တိုုင္လက္ခံရယူတဲ့ အျပင္ ပရိသတ္ေတြရဲ႕ ေမြးေန႔ဆုေတာင္းကိုပါ တပါတည္း ရယူသြားခဲ့ပါတယ္။
( ရဲ၀င့္သူ ) ဒီဗီြဘီ
Q&A between journalists and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi regarding the current conflict in Rakhine state.
Swedish Daily:
My question concerned on the situation in the Rakhine state, the ongoing violence if I may. Now that 28 people dead and the violence seemed to be more intensive. How aware are you that this violence would escalate and have an impact on the democratic development in Burma and what do you think should be done in order to protect the Muslim community form discrimination which is one reason for the conflict? Thank you.
DASSK:
Of course I am concerned as I think everybody else in Burma is about the present situation in Rakhine. I think the most important lesson we need to learn is the need for the rule of law. We have said again and again, my party the National League for Democracy, that rule of law is essential if we are to put an end to all conflicts in the country. Everybody must have access to the protection of the law, and of course they also have duties to abide by the laws of the land. So without rule of law, such communal strikes will only continue and the present situation will have to be handled with delicacy and sensitivity and we need the corporation of all people concerned to regain the peace back we want for our country. You also mention about the Kachin state I think. Hostilities in the Kachin state. I understand that there are negotiations between the government the KIO with the regard to ceasefire. I just want to underline that fact that a ceasefire is not enough. In the end we have to have a political settlement, if there is to be the kind of peace that will be lasting and meaningful.
Norwegian Television:
Do you accept the Rohingyas as Myanmarnese citizen?
DASSK:
I said earlier that what we need is rule of law in the country we need very clear and precise laws with regards to citizenship to begin with. But I would like to mention here a very practical problem that we have to resolve in the Rakhine state. I think one of the greatest problems comes from the fear on both sides of the border, that is to say Bangladesh as well as Burma, that there will be illegal immigrant crossing all the time, this is due to the porous border. I think we need more responsible and incorrupt border vigilance.
Bloomberg News:
I am Jennifer Friedman with Bloomberg News, I have two quick questions, and I like to know should the Rohingya have citizenship and secondly do you feel that TOTAL and Chevron should pull out of the ventures with Myanmar oil and gas enterprise? Thank you.
DASSK:
As to the first question, I have already said that this should be resolved in accordance with rule of law because we have to be very clear about what the laws of citizenship are and who are entitled to them and to all those who are entitled to citizenship should be treated as full citizens deserving all the rights that must be given to them.
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ေဒၚစု ILO မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၿပီး ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္ႏွင့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာအေရး ေျဖၾကား
မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန | ၾကာသပေတးေန႔၊ ဇြန္လ ၁၄ ရက္ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ၁၉ နာရီ ၀၁ မိနစ္
မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန ။ ။ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ဥကၠ႒ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ ကမၻာ့ အလုပ္သမား အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ILO ညီလာခံတြင္ ဇြန္လ ၁၄ ရက္ေန႔က နာရီဝက္ခန္႔ၾကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုၿပီး သတင္းစာ ရွင္းလင္းပြဲတခု လည္း ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့သည္။
မိန္႔ခြန္းတြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ အာဏာရွင္စနစ္မွ အသြင္ေျပာင္း အေရခြံလဲလာသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားႏွင့္ ဆင္ တူေၾကာင္းေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ေျပာလိုက္သည္။
၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ျပန္လည္အေျခခ်ခဲ့သည့္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ပထမဆံုး ဥေရာပ ခရီးစဥ္ကို ဇြန္လ ၁၃ ရက္ေန႔က စတင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ဆြတ္ဇာလန္ႏိုင္ငံ ဂ်ီနီဗာၿမိဳ႕တြင္ ျပဳလုပ္သည့္ ILO ညီလာခံတြင္ တက္ေရာက္ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
Bloomberg News:
I am Jennifer Friedman with Bloomberg News, I have two quick questions, and I like to know should the Rohingya have citizenship and secondly do you feel that TOTAL and Chevron should pull out of the ventures with Myanmar oil and gas enterprise? Thank you.
DASSK:
As to the first question, I have already said that this should be resolved in accordance with rule of law because we have to be very clear about what the laws of citizenship are and who are entitled to them and to all those who are entitled to citizenship should be treated as full citizens deserving all the rights that must be given to them.
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ေဒၚစု ILO မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၿပီး ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္ႏွင့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာအေရး ေျဖၾကား
မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန | ၾကာသပေတးေန႔၊ ဇြန္လ ၁၄ ရက္ ၂၀၁၂ ခုႏွစ္ ၁၉ နာရီ ၀၁ မိနစ္
မဇၥ်ိမသတင္းဌာန ။ ။ အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ဥကၠ႒ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ ကမၻာ့ အလုပ္သမား အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ILO ညီလာခံတြင္ ဇြန္လ ၁၄ ရက္ေန႔က နာရီဝက္ခန္႔ၾကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုၿပီး သတင္းစာ ရွင္းလင္းပြဲတခု လည္း ျပဳလုပ္ခဲ့သည္။
မိန္႔ခြန္းတြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံမွာ အာဏာရွင္စနစ္မွ အသြင္ေျပာင္း အေရခြံလဲလာသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားႏွင့္ ဆင္ တူေၾကာင္းေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ေျပာလိုက္သည္။
၁၉၈၈ ခုႏွစ္တြင္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ျပန္လည္အေျခခ်ခဲ့သည့္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ပထမဆံုး ဥေရာပ ခရီးစဥ္ကို ဇြန္လ ၁၃ ရက္ေန႔က စတင္ခဲ့ၿပီး ဆြတ္ဇာလန္ႏိုင္ငံ ဂ်ီနီဗာၿမိဳ႕တြင္ ျပဳလုပ္သည့္ ILO ညီလာခံတြင္ တက္ေရာက္ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
အမ်ဳိးသားဒီမိုကေရစီအဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ဥကၠ႒ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္သည္ ကမၻာ့ အလုပ္သမား အဖြဲ႔ခ်ဳပ္ ILO ညီလာခံတြင္ နာရီဝက္ခန္႔ၾကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုၿပီး သတင္းစာ ရွင္းလင္းပြဲတြင္ ေတြ႔ရစဥ္ (Photo: ILO)
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ခံတပိုင္း အစိုးရ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈေအာက္တြင္ ရွိေနၿပီး ေတာင္အေမရိက ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားႏွင့္ အလား သ႑ာန္တူေၾကာင္း ILO ညီလာခံသို႔ တက္ေရာက္လာၾကသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ပရိသတ္ၾကီးအား NLD ဥကၠ႒က မိန္႔ခြန္းတြင္ ထည့္သြင္းေျပာဆိုသြားသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အေနျဖင့္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္တေယာက္ ျဖစ္ေနေသာ္လည္း ယခု မိန္႔ခြန္း မွာ ျမန္မာအစိုးရကိုယ္စား မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာဆိုလိုက္ရာ ညီလာခံခန္းမရွိ ပရိသတ္ႀကီးမွာ ရယ္သံမ်ား၊ ၾသဘာသံမ်ား ေသာေသာညံသြားခဲ့သည္။
နာရီဝက္ခန္႔ၾကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုၿပီးေနာက္ ေခတၱနားၿပီး သတင္းစာရွင္းလင္းပြဲတခုလည္း NLD ဥကၠ႒ က ျပဳ လုပ္ခဲ့ေသး သည္။
ထိုသတင္းစာရွင္းလင္းပြဲတြင္ လူအမ်ား စိတ္ဝင္တစား ရွိေနၾကသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ လက္ရွိ ျဖစ္ပြား လ်က္ ရွိေသာ ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္တြင္း ပဋိပကၡမ်ားႏွင့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာအေရး တို႔ကိုလည္း ေဒၚေအာင္ ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ေျပာ ဆိုသြားေသးသည္။
ရခိုင္အေရးမွာ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈ မရွိျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ရခုိင္ေဒသ ပဋိပကၡမွာ ျမန္မာျပည္အတြက္ အေရးႀကီးတ့ဲ သင္ခန္းစာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ျပန္လည္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းဖုိ႔အတြက္ အားလုံး ပူးေပါင္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ ရ မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း သတင္းေထာက္တဦး၏ အေမးကို ေဒၚေအာင္ ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ျပန္ လည္ ေျဖၾကား ခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ ေရြးေကာက္ခံတပိုင္း အစိုးရ အုပ္ခ်ဳပ္မႈေအာက္တြင္ ရွိေနၿပီး ေတာင္အေမရိက ႏိုင္ငံမ်ားႏွင့္ အလား သ႑ာန္တူေၾကာင္း ILO ညီလာခံသို႔ တက္ေရာက္လာၾကသည့္ ႏိုင္ငံတကာ ပရိသတ္ၾကီးအား NLD ဥကၠ႒က မိန္႔ခြန္းတြင္ ထည့္သြင္းေျပာဆိုသြားသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္အေနျဖင့္ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ ကိုယ္စားလွယ္တေယာက္ ျဖစ္ေနေသာ္လည္း ယခု မိန္႔ခြန္း မွာ ျမန္မာအစိုးရကိုယ္စား မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ေျပာဆိုလိုက္ရာ ညီလာခံခန္းမရွိ ပရိသတ္ႀကီးမွာ ရယ္သံမ်ား၊ ၾသဘာသံမ်ား ေသာေသာညံသြားခဲ့သည္။
နာရီဝက္ခန္႔ၾကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာဆိုၿပီးေနာက္ ေခတၱနားၿပီး သတင္းစာရွင္းလင္းပြဲတခုလည္း NLD ဥကၠ႒ က ျပဳ လုပ္ခဲ့ေသး သည္။
ထိုသတင္းစာရွင္းလင္းပြဲတြင္ လူအမ်ား စိတ္ဝင္တစား ရွိေနၾကသည့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံတြင္ လက္ရွိ ျဖစ္ပြား လ်က္ ရွိေသာ ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္တြင္း ပဋိပကၡမ်ားႏွင့္ ႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာအေရး တို႔ကိုလည္း ေဒၚေအာင္ ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ေျပာ ဆိုသြားေသးသည္။
ရခိုင္အေရးမွာ တရားဥပေဒစိုးမိုးမႈ မရွိျခင္းေၾကာင့္ ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ရခုိင္ေဒသ ပဋိပကၡမွာ ျမန္မာျပည္အတြက္ အေရးႀကီးတ့ဲ သင္ခန္းစာျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း၊ ျပန္လည္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းဖုိ႔အတြက္ အားလုံး ပူးေပါင္း ေဆာင္ရြက္ ရ မည္ျဖစ္ေၾကာင္း သတင္းေထာက္တဦး၏ အေမးကို ေဒၚေအာင္ ဆန္းစုၾကည္ က ျပန္ လည္ ေျဖၾကား ခဲ့ျခင္း ျဖစ္သည္။
ထို႔ျပင္ ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္က ဘဂၤလားေဒ့ရွ္ႏွင့္ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံၾကား နယ္စပ္အေရး ကိစၥမ်ား တြင္ ႏွစ္ဖက္လံုး ၏ အား နည္းခ်က္မ်ားရွိခဲ့ သည့္ အတြက္ တရားမဝင္ ဝင္ေရာက္လာသူမ်ား အခ်ိန္ တိုင္းတြင္ ရွိ ခဲ့ေၾကာင္း၊ ႏုိင္ငံသား တေယာက္ ျဖစ္ရန္အတြက္ ႏုိင္ငံသားျဖစ္ခြင့္ႏွင့္ စပ္ဆိုင္သည့္ ဥပေဒမ်ား အမွန္တကယ္ အသက္ဝင္ဖို႔ လိုအပ္ေၾကာင္း ထည့္သြင္းေျပာဆိုသြားသည္။
႐ိုဟင္ဂ်ာမ်ားမွာ ျမန္မာႏုိင္ငံမွ တိုင္းရင္းသားမ်ား မဟုတ္ေၾကာင္း ျမန္မာအစိုးရက ေၾကညာထားသည္။
ရခိုင္ျပည္နယ္ ပဋိပကၡမ်ားအတြင္း ဇြန္လ ၈ ရက္ေန႔မွ ၁၁ ေန႔အထိ လူေပါင္း ၂၁ ဦး ေသဆံုးခဲ့ၿပီး ၂၁ ဦး ဒဏ္ရာရရွိခဲ့ သည္ဟု ႏိုင္ငံပိုင္ သတင္းစာမ်ားက ေရးသားသည္။ ယင္းအျပင္ လူေနအိမ္ ၁၆၆၂ လံုး၊ ဆိုင္ခန္း ေျခာက္ခန္း၊ ဆိုင္ကယ္ ၁၈ စီး၊ ေထာ္လာဂ်ီ သံုးစီး၊ စက္ဘီး ကိုးစီးတို႔လည္း ပ်က္စီးခဲ့ရသည္ဟု ဆိုသည္။
ေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္၏ ခရီးစဥ္တြင္ ေနာ္ေဝႏိုင္ငံ၊ ေအာ္စလိုၿမိဳ႕သို႔ ဇြန္လ ၁၅ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ သြားေရာက္ကာ ၁၉၉၁ ခုႏွစ္က ရရွိခဲ့သည့္ ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းေရးႏိုဘယ္ဆုအား ကိုယ္တိုင္လက္ခံရယူကာ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၾကားမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ထို႔ေနာက္ ဇြန္လ ၁၈ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ အိုင္ယာလန္ႏိုင္ငံ၊ ဒဗၺလင္ၿမိဳ႕သို႔ သြားေရာက္ကာ ကမၻာေက်ာ္ U2 ေတးဂီတအဖြဲ႔၏ေဖ်ာ္ေျဖပြဲသို႔ တက္ေရာက္ၿပီး အျပည္ျပည္ဆိုင္ရာ လြတ္ၿငိမ္းခ်မ္းသာခြင့္အဖြဲ႔ IA က ခ်ီးျမႇင့္ထားၿပီး ျဖစ္သည့္ Ambassador of Conscience ဆုကို လက္ခံရယူမည္ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုဆုကို U2 ေခါင္းေဆာင္ ေရာ့ခ္ အဆိုေတာ္ Bono က ေပးအပ္ရန္ စီစဥ္ထားသည္။
ထိုေန႔တြင္ပင္ ၿဗိတိန္ႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ခရီးဆက္၍ ဇြန္လ ၂၆ ရက္ေန႔ထိ ေနထိုင္မည္ ျဖစ္သည္။ ထိုအေတာအတြင္း ဇြန္လ ၁၉ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ က်ေရာက္သည့္ ၆၇ ႏွစ္ေျမာက္ ေမြးေန႔ကိုလည္း သားႏွစ္ေယာက္ႏွင့္အတူ က်င္းပရန္ရွိၿပီး ဇြန္ ၂၁ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ ၿဗိတိန္ လႊတ္ေတာ္ႏွစ္ရပ္သို႔ မိန္႔ခြန္းေျပာၾကားမည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ထို႔ျပင္ BBC Reith lectures တြင္ “သေဘာထားကြဲလြဲမႈႏွင့္ လြတ္လပ္မႈ” ဟူသည့္ ေခါင္းစဥ္ျဖင့္ ပို႔ခ်ရန္ စီစဥ္ထားၿပီးေဒၚေအာင္ဆန္းစုၾကည္ အလြန္ႏွစ္သက္ေသာ BBC ေတးဂီတ အစီအစဥ္တခု ျဖစ္သည့္ A Jolly Good Show ၏ အစီအစဥ္မႉး Hairy Cornflake ႏွင့္လည္း ေတြ႔ဆံုႏိုင္မည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ယခုခရီးစဥ္၏ ေနာက္ဆံုးႏိုင္ငံျဖစ္သည့္ ျပင္သစ္ႏိုင္ငံ ပဲရစ္ၿမိဳ႕တြင္ သမၼတ Francois Hollande ၏ ဧည့္သည္အျဖစ္ ဇြန္လ ၂၉ ရက္ေန႔ထိ ေနထိုင္မည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
ဥေရာပ ငါးႏိုင္ငံ ခရီးစဥ္ ၿပီးဆံုး၍ ျမန္မာႏိုင္ငံသို႔ ျပန္ေရာက္သည့္အခါ ျပည္သူ႔လႊတ္ေတာ္ႏွင့္ ျပည္ေထာင္စု လႊတ္ေတာ္ ပံုမွန္အစည္းအေဝးမ်ားသို႔ ဇူလိုင္လ ၄ ရက္ေန႔တြင္ စတင္တက္ေရာက္ေဆြးေႏြးႏုိင္ မည္ ျဖစ္သည္။
Sources:
Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi heads to Thailand on Tuesday for her first trip abroad in more than two decades, ending an era of isolation and cementing her arrival on the global stage.
Aung San Suu Kyi's plan to leave Burma for the first time since 1988 comes as dramatic changes sweep the country, after decades of outright military rule ended last year Photo: AFP
The former political prisoner, who won a seat in parliament in historic April by-elections, is expected to meet the Thai prime minister, attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia and meet Burma communities during several days in the country.
Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of the past 22 years under house arrest, will emerge into a world transformed, with the skyscrapers and frenetic activity of Bangkok presenting a stark contrast to her sleepy home city of Yangon, regularly beset by power outages.
She is due to arrive in Bangkok around 1440 GMT. Her plan to leave Burma for the first time since 1988 comes as dramatic changes sweep the country, after decades of outright military rule ended last year.
Suu Kyi, fearful that she would never be allowed to return, had refused to travel abroad in the past, even when the former junta denied her dying husband a visa to visit her from Britain.
Trevor Wilson, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, said her plans for foreign travel – including a proposed European tour in June – would be a key sign of the changes under a new reformist regime.
"It will demonstrate that the government allows her not only to travel, but also to return to Burma afterwards and continue her political activities," he told AFP.
Suu Kyi will meet Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra during her trip, but the timing has not yet to be confirmed, the prime minister's secretary general Thawat Boonfeung told AFP.
Suu Kyi is also set to visit Burma migrant workers in Samut Sakhon province, south of Bangkok, on Wednesday according to local activists.
Thailand's workforce is heavily reliant on low-cost foreign workers, both legal and trafficked, with Burma nationals accounting for around 80 per cent of the two million registered foreign workers in the country.
Suu Kyi is also expected to travel to the north of the country to meet some of the roughly 100,000 refugees displaced by conflict in Burma's eastern border areas.
The Nobel laureate is scheduled to speak in an open discussion with World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and appear at a session on the role of Asian women on Friday.
Suu Kyi's European travel plans include an address to an International Labour Organization conference in Geneva on June 14.
After that she will make a speech in Oslo on June 16 to finally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991 for her peaceful struggle for democracy, according to the Nobel Committee.
She also intends to travel to Britain, where she lived for years with her family, and will address parliament in London on June 21.
Burma President Thein Sein, who is credited with a string of reforms that have prompted the international community to ease sanctions, has postponed his official visit to Thailand, which would have clashed with Suu Kyi's trip.
He will now travel to the country on June 4 and 5, according to the Thai foreign ministry.
Source: AFP
Aung San Suu Kyi's plan to leave Burma for the first time since 1988 comes as dramatic changes sweep the country, after decades of outright military rule ended last year Photo: AFP
The former political prisoner, who won a seat in parliament in historic April by-elections, is expected to meet the Thai prime minister, attend the World Economic Forum on East Asia and meet Burma communities during several days in the country.
Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of the past 22 years under house arrest, will emerge into a world transformed, with the skyscrapers and frenetic activity of Bangkok presenting a stark contrast to her sleepy home city of Yangon, regularly beset by power outages.
She is due to arrive in Bangkok around 1440 GMT. Her plan to leave Burma for the first time since 1988 comes as dramatic changes sweep the country, after decades of outright military rule ended last year.
Suu Kyi, fearful that she would never be allowed to return, had refused to travel abroad in the past, even when the former junta denied her dying husband a visa to visit her from Britain.
Trevor Wilson, a visiting fellow at the Australian National University, said her plans for foreign travel – including a proposed European tour in June – would be a key sign of the changes under a new reformist regime.
"It will demonstrate that the government allows her not only to travel, but also to return to Burma afterwards and continue her political activities," he told AFP.
Suu Kyi will meet Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra during her trip, but the timing has not yet to be confirmed, the prime minister's secretary general Thawat Boonfeung told AFP.
Suu Kyi is also set to visit Burma migrant workers in Samut Sakhon province, south of Bangkok, on Wednesday according to local activists.
Thailand's workforce is heavily reliant on low-cost foreign workers, both legal and trafficked, with Burma nationals accounting for around 80 per cent of the two million registered foreign workers in the country.
Suu Kyi is also expected to travel to the north of the country to meet some of the roughly 100,000 refugees displaced by conflict in Burma's eastern border areas.
The Nobel laureate is scheduled to speak in an open discussion with World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and appear at a session on the role of Asian women on Friday.
Suu Kyi's European travel plans include an address to an International Labour Organization conference in Geneva on June 14.
After that she will make a speech in Oslo on June 16 to finally accept the Nobel Peace Prize she was awarded in 1991 for her peaceful struggle for democracy, according to the Nobel Committee.
She also intends to travel to Britain, where she lived for years with her family, and will address parliament in London on June 21.
Burma President Thein Sein, who is credited with a string of reforms that have prompted the international community to ease sanctions, has postponed his official visit to Thailand, which would have clashed with Suu Kyi's trip.
He will now travel to the country on June 4 and 5, according to the Thai foreign ministry.
Source: AFP
YANGON, Myanmar - Aung San Suu Kyi's party confirmed Sunday, April 22, that it will postpone its parliamentary debut next week in the first sign of discord between Myanmar's newly-elected opposition and reformist government.
The democracy icon and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) will not travel to the capital Naypyidaw to enter parliament on Monday, party spokesman Ohn Kyaing told AFP, following a dispute over the swearing-in oath.
"We are not boycotting, but we are just waiting for the right time to go," said Suu Kyi, who won her first-ever seat in parliament in landmark April 1 by-elections, after a meeting on the issue in Yangon.
The NLD has baulked at the wording of the oath, which requires them to protect a constitution that was drawn up by the country's former junta.
Authorities have rejected the party's appeal to change the wording of the oath from "safeguard" to "respect" the constitution and a letter to the office of Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein on the issue was sent too late for the row to be resolved before the next session of parliament begins on Monday.
The NLD, which boycotted a controversial 2010 election, agreed to rejoin the political mainstream last year after authorities changed a similar phrase in party registration documents.
Suu Kyi has said one of her priorities as a politician is to push for an amendment of the 2008 constitution, under which one quarter of the seats in parliament are reserved for unelected military officials.
The spat casts a shadow over a rapid thawing in relations between long-isolated Myanmar and the international community since the Nobel Peace Prize winner and her party achieved a decisive win in the April 1 polls.
Suu Kyi, who was locked up for most of the last two decades, has shown increased confidence in the regime in recent weeks, calling for European Union sanctions to be suspended and planning her first international trip in 24 years. - Agence France-Presse
The democracy icon and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) will not travel to the capital Naypyidaw to enter parliament on Monday, party spokesman Ohn Kyaing told AFP, following a dispute over the swearing-in oath.
"We are not boycotting, but we are just waiting for the right time to go," said Suu Kyi, who won her first-ever seat in parliament in landmark April 1 by-elections, after a meeting on the issue in Yangon.
The NLD has baulked at the wording of the oath, which requires them to protect a constitution that was drawn up by the country's former junta.
Authorities have rejected the party's appeal to change the wording of the oath from "safeguard" to "respect" the constitution and a letter to the office of Myanmar's reformist President Thein Sein on the issue was sent too late for the row to be resolved before the next session of parliament begins on Monday.
The NLD, which boycotted a controversial 2010 election, agreed to rejoin the political mainstream last year after authorities changed a similar phrase in party registration documents.
Suu Kyi has said one of her priorities as a politician is to push for an amendment of the 2008 constitution, under which one quarter of the seats in parliament are reserved for unelected military officials.
The spat casts a shadow over a rapid thawing in relations between long-isolated Myanmar and the international community since the Nobel Peace Prize winner and her party achieved a decisive win in the April 1 polls.
Suu Kyi, who was locked up for most of the last two decades, has shown increased confidence in the regime in recent weeks, calling for European Union sanctions to be suspended and planning her first international trip in 24 years. - Agence France-Presse
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