Suu Kyi ‘Should Have Resigned’ On Rohingya

The outgoing UN human rights chief says Myanmar’s de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi should have resigned over the military’s violent campaign against the Rohingya Muslim minority last year.

Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein told the BBC the Nobel Peace prize winner should have considered returning to house arrest rather than excusing the military.

A new UN report says Myanmar’s military should be investigated for genocide.

Myanmar has rejected the report as one-sided.

The army of the Buddhist-majority nation – which has been accused of systematic ethnic cleansing – has previously cleared itself of wrongdoing.

The UN report, published on Monday, blamed Ms Suu Kyi, a long-term leader of the pro-democracy movement, for failing to prevent the violence.

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“She was in a position to do something,” Mr Hussein said in an interview with the BBC’s Imogen Foulkes. “She could have stayed quiet – or even better, she could have resigned.”

“There was no need for her to be the spokesperson of the Burmese military. She didn’t have to say this was an iceberg of misinformation. These were fabrications,” he said.

What has Aung Sun Suu Kyi said?

While it is acknowledged that Ms Suu Kyi does not control the military, she has faced international pressure to condemn the army’s alleged brutality.

For decades, she was hailed as the heroine of the human rights community – most notably for enduring house arrest for her pro-democracy activism during a brutal military dictatorship.

When communal violence broke out in 2012 and displaced more than 100,000 Rohingya people, Ms Suu Kyi sought to reassure the international community and pledged to “abide by our commitment to human rights and democratic values”.

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“Muslims have been targeted but Buddhists have also been subjected to violence,” she told the BBC at the time. “This fear is what is leading all the trouble.”

She said that it was down to the government to bring an end to the violence, explaining: “This is the result of our suffering under a dictatorial regime.”

Thousands of people have died and more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since August 2017.

There have also been widespread allegations of human rights abuses against the Rohingya, including arbitrary killing, rape and burning of land over many years.

Source: BBC