Hands Tied by Old Hope, Diplomats in Myanmar Stay Silent
Charles Petrie said that Western donors and the U.N. have not always been helpful,
In a televised address on Thursday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi pushed back against international criticism
and promised to personally oversee efforts to bring peace to Rakhine and repatriate those who have fled to Bangladesh.
A nation does not emerge from 50 years of military dictatorship without political wounds, they say, asserting
that pushing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, whose famous resolve can tend toward obduracy, could be counterproductive.
In the speech, as in an address delivered to foreign envoys last month, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi declined to tackle accusations
that the military has unleashed arson, murder and rape on the Rohingya.
But in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, where the diplomatic corps is based, there is still reluctance
to call to task publicly either the military or the civilian administration led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
Diplomats say Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi used to express sympathy for the Rohingya in private, explaining
that she could not speak out because of widespread hatred for them among the Buddhist majority.