Tutu defends Suu Kyi over Rohingya silence

South African peace activist Desmond Tutu speaks at the Baldwin Library in Rangoon on Feb. 27, 2013. (Photo: Kyaw Phyo Tha / The Irrawaddy)

Thursday, 28 February 2013
Mtimes
By Tim McLaughlin

Speaking at the American Center in Yangon on February 27, retired archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu said that Aung San Suu Kyi’s reluctance to speak out was linked to her current political position.
Tutu refused to criticise fellow Peace Prize recipient Suu Kyi over her continued silence on Myanmar’s Rohingya issue, but said he hoped that she would be given the chance in the future to explain how politics had influenced her choices.
“Perhaps it would be important that one day she does get the opportunity of explaining how political considerations can make it difficult to be as clear and unambiguous,” Tutu said, adding that Suu Kyi is making the transition between what he described as a “global icon” and politician.
The two met on February 26 at Suu Kyi’s home in Yangon, during Tutu’s first visit to Myanmar. He has long been a supporter of Suu Kyi and Myanmar’s process of democratisation.
Tutu’s comments came a week after two other Nobel Peace Prize recipients called on the Myanmar government to end “ethnic cleansing” in Rakhine state and grant “full citizenship” to the Rohingya: something Suu Kyi has not done.
Nobel Peace Prize recipients former president of Timor Leste, Jose Ramos-Horta, and the economist responsible for the concepts of microcredit and microfinance, Muhammad Yunus, voiced their concerns in an editorial published by Huffington Post on February 20.
“Even as we applaud and rejoice in the new freedoms enjoyed by the Myanmar people, the country's newly elected government must face this challenge as they evolve from autocratic rule into a democratic state. The tragedy of the Rohingya people, continuing to unfold in Rakhine State in the country's western corner, on the border of Bangladesh, will be its proving ground,” wrote Ramos-Horta and Yunus.
“The minority Muslim Rohingya continue to suffer unspeakable persecution, with more than 1,000 killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes just in recent months, apparently with the complicity and protection of security forces.”
Ramos-Horta and Yunus also criticised Myanmar’s 1982 Citizenship Law.
Tutu's comments, however, were not as pointed as those of Ramos-Horta and Yunus.
“How we treat our minority, ultimately is going to decide whether we survive,” Tutu said to loud applause when speaking about the Rohingya.
Tutu, who retired as the Archbishop of Cape Town in 1996, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 for his efforts to end South Africa’s apartheid. After abolishing the apartheid, he served as the Chairman of the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a restorative court-like body formed to review the crimes committed during the apartheid era.