Right time to speak, but she failed to provide solutions: Myanmar journo on Suu Kyi's Rohingya address

By Ashok Dixit

Naypyidaw [Myanmar], September 19 (ANI): Senior Myanmar journalist Mratt Kyaw Thu has said that it was the right time for Myanmar State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi to speak on the Rohingya issue and their unprecedented exodus to Bangladesh, but she "failed to provide solutions to the problem."

"Myanmar leader Suu Kyi has tried to explain that something has been happening and it was the right time to speak on the issue, but her statement lacks the answer and is unable to provide any solution for the Rakhine crisis," Kyaw Thu, who works for the Frontier Myanmar, said, on Tuesday.

"There have been allegations and counter-allegations that need to be investigated. The government still needs to find out what the real problems are," Suu Kyi had said, in a nationally televised address, the first since an army crackdown on the Rohingya Muslim minority community was branded as "ethnic cleansing" by the United Nations.

Suu Kyi defended her country in the face of international criticism and said "more than half" of Rohingya villages were not affected by the violence and invited diplomats and foreign observers to visit them to see "why they are still there when they are surrounded by a state of turmoil" even as she addressed the nation on the Rohingya issue.

When asked about Suu Kyi announcing to start the process of verification for the return of the Rohingya refugees, senior journalist said, "In our history, there had been so many problems like our previous governments had to take back one million or more. So this time as well we have to do that, we must do that. Some of our citizens are there in Bangladesh, so we have to take them back."

"But it is going through the verification process. According to the government, if they can prove that they are the true citizens with legal documents, they can be back again," he added.

When asked what type of allegations and counter-allegations Suu Kyi was referring to, the journalist said, "I think she was asking to not exaggerate the Rohingya issue. She said that because the international media has some ordinance about the issue."

He added that he completely agrees with the Myanmar's de-facto leader that the law will take care of the Rohingya issue. (ANI)

This story has not been edited. It has been published as provided by ANI