Myanmar’s Suu Kyi scraps UN trip amid Rakhine crisis

By AFP
13 September 2017
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi scraps UN trip amid Rakhine crisis
Myanmar's state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi speaks during a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (not pictured) at the presidential house in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, 06 September 2017. Photo: Hein Htet/EPA

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not attend the United Nations General Assembly later this month, her spokesman said Wednesday, as the Nobel laureate faces a barrage of criticism over her failure to speak up for Rohingya Muslims fleeing Rakhine state in huge numbers.
A crackdown by Myanmar's army, launched in response to Rohingya terrorist attacks on August 25, has sent some 370,000 Rohingya refugees across the border to Bangladesh in less than three weeks.
The violence has incubated a humanitarian crisis on both sides of the border.
Bangladesh is struggling to provide relief for exhausted and hungry refugees -- some 60 percent of whom are children -- while nearly 30,000 ethnic Rakhine Buddhists as well as Hindus have been displaced inside Myanmar.
Suu Kyi, Myanmar's first civilian leader in decades, does not control the actions of the powerful military, which ran the country for 50 years before allowing free elections in 2015.
Outside of her country Suu Kyi's reputation as a rights defender is in ruins over the Rohingya crisis.
Rights groups have pilloried the former democracy activist for failing to condemn the army campaign, which has left hundreds dead.
Rohingya refugees have told chilling accounts of soldiers firing on civilians and razing entire villages in northern Rakhine state with the help of Buddhist mobs.
The army denies the allegations, while Suu Kyi has also played down such claims instead blaming "a huge iceberg of misinformation" for complicating the conflict.
"The state counsellor won't attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly," said government spokesman Zaw Htay, using Suu Kyi's formal title.
The spokesman did not explain the decision but said the country's Vice President Henry Van Thio would attend the summit, which runs through next week.
© AFP