Hun Sen chides Suu Kyi on Rohingya, Greece’s Tsipras on hasty campaign promises

Suu Kyi on Rohingya

Tue, 10 October 2017

Ben Sokhean and Erin Handley

Prime Minister Hun Sen broke his avowed silence on Myanmar’s “Rohingya issue” to make a political point – and fresh election promises – at a university graduation ceremony yesterday.

The premier in February made assurances that “Cambodia disagrees with the attempt to internationalise the Rohingya issue, considering it as an internal issue of Myanmar”, citing Asean’s principle of “non-interference”. Yesterday, however, he appeared to change his tune speaking to graduating students at the Cambodian University for Specialties.

“In Myanmar there is a problem known as ‘Rohingya’,” he said, adding Myanmar wouldn’t allow the use of the word “Rohingya” and insisted on “Bengali”.

He described the current situation as a “humanitarian crisis of refugees”.

More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar since August 25, after Rohingya militants attacked security posts in Rakhine state, igniting a vicious response from the military. Villages have been razed, people have been raped and shot, and the UN’s top rights official has described Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.

Myanmar’s de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, spent 15 years under house arrest and was long idolised as an incarnation of liberal democracy and human rights, but has recently fallen out of favour and been stripped of international accolades due to her response – or lack thereof – to the violence perpetrated against the Rohingya.

Although he did not name her, Hun Sen yesterday appeared to criticise Suu Kyi’s leadership.

“The politicians in some countries ... make extreme promises and finally, now when they hold the power, they cannot [fulfil them],” he said. “Some countries promise to end the discrimination towards the ethnic minority, but now that country is suffering with ethnic problems and the previous ceasefire also failed, so the fighting just began again.”

The criticisms come just days after Hun Sen met State Counsellor Suu Kyi in Brunei, with pictures of the pair posted to the premier’s Facebook page on Saturday.

Representatives at the Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassy in Phnom Penh could not be reached. Cambodian Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry declined to comment as he was unaware of the meeting or the premier’s remarks.