Rohingya Muslim women, who crossed over from Burma into Bangladesh, stretch their arms out to collect sanitary products distributed by aid agencies near Balukhali refugee camp. Photo / AP
Rohingya Muslim women, who crossed over from Burma into Bangladesh, stretch their arms out to collect sanitary products distributed by aid agencies near Balukhali refugee camp. Photo / AP
Aung San Suu Kyi was supposed to be addressing the United Nations, and the world, this week at the annual general assembly in New York.
Instead, the de facto leader of Burma will give a televised speech in her own country, breaking her near-silence on the humanitarian crisis as Rohingya refugees flee violence in Burma and pour into neighbouring Bangladesh.
Suu Kyi's speech today will be scrutinised intensely, with the UN chief yesterday calling it her "last chance" to stop the bloodshed.
"If she does not reverse the situation now, then I think the tragedy will be absolutely horrible, and unfortunately then I don't see how this can be reversed in the future," Antonio Guterres told the BBC.
This week could prove pivotal for the crisis as Bangladeshi authorities struggle to get the refugee situation under control. More than 410,000 people from the Rohingya minority Muslim group have now crossed the border.
Suu Kyi's image as a human rights campaigner has been tarnished after she failed to intervene in the crackdown which started on August 25, when the military in Buddhist-majority Burma launched operations in Rakhine state.
The army says its "clearance operations" in the area are aimed at flushing out Rohingya militants who had attacked police posts.
Violence has since engulfed the border region, with reports emerging of Rohingya villages being razed and civilians being cut down as they try to flee. The UN has branded the so-called security offensive a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".
However, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has expressed no public concern for the Rohingya and has instead blamed "terrorists" for the violence while also bemoaning "a huge iceberg of misinformation".
Angelina Jolie, the actress and UN Special Envoy on refugees, yesterday condemned the conflict. "It's absolutely clear that the violence by the army needs to stop and that the return of the refugees has to be permitted - and that the Rohingya should be given civil rights," she said.
She added: "We all wish that Aung San Suu Kyi will, in this situation, be the voice of human rights."
Suu Kyi's party took office last year as Burma's first civilian-led government after 50 years of junta rule, but she has no power to control the army, which retains sweeping powers and controls the police and border forces
"She's signalling that her chief priority is the relationship between the government and military and that the pogrom is secondary to that," Francis Wade, author of Myanmar's Enemy Within said of the position Suu Kyi has taken.
General Min Aung Hlaing, Burma's army chief, has called for a "united" stance in handling the crisis but gave no sign of concessions. And yesterday Burma's Government hinted it may not take back Rohingya who fled across the border, accusing those refugees of having links to the militants.
"Those who fled the villages made their way to the other country for fear of being arrested as they got involved in the violent attacks. Legal protection will be given to the villages whose residents did not flee," the Government said.
A girl holds a sign calling for the removal of the honorary Canadian citizenship of Burma leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo / AP
Analysts are not expecting Suu Kyi to change her position in the speech, which has to address the crisis without angering the military.
"Depressingly, her silence about the Rohingya makes her far more popular at home," veteran journalist John Simpson wrote in an article for the Daily Telegraph. "There is little or no sympathy for them among ethnic Burmese, mostly Buddhists, who form the great majority of the country's population."
Over the weekend, Bangladeshi authorities told newly arrived Rohingya refugees that they must stay near the border - not move further into the country - and reminded Bangladeshi people they were not to rent housing to refugees.
It came as aid agencies warned yesterday that Rohingyas fleeing the violence could die of starvation, exposure and dehydration as authorities began moving people to camps in order to streamline the distribution of help.
"Many people are arriving hungry, exhausted and with no food or water," Mark Pierce, Bangladesh country-director for the Save the Children aid agency said. "I'm particularly worried that the demand for food, shelter, water and basic hygiene support is not being met due to the sheer number of people in need. If families can't meet their basic needs, the suffering will get even worse and lives could be lost."
Two children and a woman died in a stampede to get aid in the Cox's Bazar district, which is home to tens of thousands of Rohingyas. Heavy monsoon rain yesterday descended upon hundreds of thousands of people stuck in makeshift camps, with many refugees living on roadsides under flimsy plastic sheets.
Torrential rain brought swamp-like conditions to many parts of Cox's Bazar.
