NAYPYITAW // Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday addressed controversy over the use of the word “Rohingya” to describe the persecuted and stateless Muslim minority, warning that use of the term risked inflaming communal tensions in Myanmar.
It came as visiting US secretary of state John Kerry pressed the Nobel laureate to promote respect for human rights, and urged Myanmar’s new civilian-led government to complete the South-east Asian nation’s transition to democracy by implementing further reforms to enshrine free markets and development.
Speaking with Myanmar’s foreign minister and its de facto leader Ms Suu Kyi, Mr Kerry pledged continuing US support for the country. He also hailed progress it has made since Ms Suu Kyi’s political party took office in late March after winning historic elections that ended decades of military control.
“We strongly support the democratic transition that is taking place here,” Mr Kerry said.
His visit came less than a week after the Obama administration lifted sanctions against 10 state-run companies and banks in a sweeping modification of penalties imposed while Myanmar was under military rule.
The administration, however, left in place restrictions on trade and investment with the nation’s still-powerful military. The changes are intended to spur more US investment and support economic growth under the new government, but also to encourage more reforms.
Ms Suu Kyi said her new government was determined to address deep hatreds in western Rakhine State, where tens of thousands of Rohingya are confined to squalid displacement camps after waves of deadly unrest with local Buddhists in 2012.
Buddhist nationalists have staged protests across the country against using the term Rohingya.
They label the group Bengalis, casting Myanmar’s more than one million Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
“The Rakhine Buddhists object to the term ‘Rohingya’ just as much as the Muslims object to the term ‘Bengali’,” Ms Suu Kyi said during a press conference with Mr Kerry in the capital Naypyidaw.
The words carry “all kinds of political and emotional implications which are unacceptable to the opposite parties”, she added.
Ms Suu Kyi, who has faced criticism internationally for not speaking up for the Rohingya, pledged to work towards a situation where the communities live peacefully and securely outside the camps.
“That is why we say that we need the space to build up trust and security within the community”, Ms Suu Kyi added.
The new government was trying to tiptoe through the deeply controversial subject to find a solution that is acceptable for all, she explained.
Myanmar’s Rohingya population are denied citizenship even though many can trace their roots in the country back generations.
Mr Kerry praised his counterpart for explaining her approach to the incendiary issue.
“At the same time we all understand as a matter of fact that there is a group here in Myanmar that calls itself Rohingya,” he added.
The US says it backs the rights of all ethnic groups to identify as they wish.
In recent weeks Washington has come under pressure from hardline Buddhists after the US embassy used the term Rohingya to refer to the persecuted Muslim minority.
Some 125,000 Rohingya in Myanmar remain displaced and face severe travel restrictions in camps since fighting erupted in Rakhine State between the country’s Buddhists and Muslims in 2012. Thousands have fled persecution and poverty.
* Agence-France Presse, Associated Press and Reuters
