Nobel Laureate Who Is Okay With the Persecution of Muslims

Aung San Suu Kyi (Middle)

1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has once again shown stern resistance to criticize the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims when in an interview with BBC on Wednesday 5 April she asserted that the global media is lying to the world on the Rohingya Muslims issue. Suu Kyi in the interview when asked if she would be remembered as the Nobel Peace Prize winner who ignored ethnic cleansing in her own country said, “I don't think there is ethnic cleansing going on I think ethnic cleansing is too strong an expression to use for what is happening, I think there is a lot of hostility there—it is Muslims killing Muslims as well, if they think they are co-operating with the authorities.” According to a report issued by the UN earlier this year, based on facts gotten from interviews with 220 Rohingya Muslims who are among the 75,000 who have fled to Bangladesh since October 2016, Burma’s security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes in a campaign that  amounted to crimes again humanity and ethnic cleansing. Prior to the current waves of violence against the Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state of Burma, the UN had declared the Rohingya Muslims the world’s most persecuted minorities. Observers used to believe Aung San Suu Kyi’s silence or indifference to the plight of the Rohingyas was political, but a series of invents are pointing to the fact that the 71 year old like most Burmese Bhuddists might have a special hatred towards Muslims. Suu Kyi told reporters after receiving a ‘peace’ award in 2012 that she did not know if the Rohingya Muslims could be called Burmese citizens. According to Suu kyi’s biographer, Peter Popham, after an interview with BBC correspondent, Mishal Husain, Suu Kyi expressed anger at being interviewed by a Muslim. The Burmese government insists that the Rohingya Muslims are Migrants to Burma but historical facts show that the Rohingya have been living in Arakan (Rohingya word for Rakhine) since the 8^th century and only became part of Burma when Arakan was annexed by Burmese forces in 1785.