MYANMAR State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi should ignore mounting criticisms against her for remaining mum on the plight of Rohingya Muslims deprived of citizenship, President Rodrigo Duterte said Friday.
Suu Kyi, who was once hailed “an outstanding example of the power of the powerless,” is now under fire amid allegations that she has failed to speak out over violence against the Rohingyas.
“Aung San Suu Kyi was with us. I pity her, because she seems to be caught in the middle being a Nobel Peace Prize winner and there is the ruckus where she is heavily criticized,” Duterte told an audience of Indian businessmen interested at investing in the country.
“I said, ‘Don’t mind the human rights, they are just a noisy bunch.’”
Once again launching into a tirade against critics of his bloody drug war, Duterte insisted that the concept of human rights is ‘Western’, and may not necessarily apply to other parts of the world.
He even called the United Nations “useless” after its special rapporteurs spoke out against alleged state-sponsored killings in the Philippines.
“The UN has no purpose at all, actually, for mankind,” Duterte said.
“As far as I’m concerned, with all its inutility, it has not prevented any war, it has not prevented any massacre. And [while] here I am trying to protect my country, [they are] saying that I have killed 10,000.”
Critics lamented Suu Kyi’s inaction over the world’s fastest-growing refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee to neighboring Bangladesh amid persecution from Myanmar’s Buddhist majority.
Many of those who have fled describe troops and Rakhine Buddhist mobs burning their villages and attacking civilians.
Myanmar’s military, however, claims it is fighting Rohingya militants, and denies ever targeting civilians.
In November last year, the Philippines voted against a United Nations General Assembly committee draft resolution calling on Myanmar to grant full and unhindered humanitarian aid access for the Rohingya minority and for Myanmar to grant them full citizenship rights.
In explaining the decision, Palace spokesman Harry Roque then insisted that “isolation and censure” would only add to the difficulty in Rakhine state, which “has deep historical roots.”
With Sara Susanne Fabunan
During the Asean Summit plenary sessions, Myanmar had agreed to repatriate thousands of stranded Rohingya Muslims currently in neighboring Bangladesh.
Viewed by the UN and the United States as one of the world’s most persecuted minorities, the Rohingya have seen more than 600,000 of their ranks flee in two-and-a-half months.
The UN has denounced the campaign, including allegations of killings and mass rape, as “ethnic cleansing.”
UN special rapporteurs on Friday expressed alarm at efforts by the Duterte administration to shut down online news site Rappler, perceived to be critical against the government.
Special rapporteurs David Kaye (Promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression); Agnes Callamard (Extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions) and Michel Forst (Situation of human rights defenders) said the government must stop its attempts to silence the online news site.
“We are gravely concerned that the government is moving to revoke Rappler’s license,” the three special rapporteurs said in a joint statement.
“Rappler’s work rests on its own freedom to impart information, and more importantly its vast readership to have access to its public interest reporting,” the UN experts said. “As a matter of human rights law, there is no basis to block it from operating. Rappler and other independent outlets need particular protection because of the essential role they play in ensuring robust public debate.”
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Jan. 11 revoked Rappler’s certificate of incorporation amid allegations that it breached ownership rules after allegedly accepting money from foreign investors.
The special rapporteurs scored SEC’s move, “since is at odds with its past approach to foreign support of local or national media, given that philanthropic contributions do not amount to foreign ownership.”
“It has rejected the previously accepted format of contributions which media companies use to raise foreign funding.
“We are especially concerned that this move against Rappler comes at a time of rising rhetoric against independent voices in the country,” the UN experts concluded. “We urge the government to return to its path of protection and promotion of independent media, especially those covering issues in the public interest.”
Also on Friday, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano slammed Human Rights Watch, saying the group has been consistently and deliberately misleading the international community into believing that the Philippines has become a “Wild Wild West of Asia,” where the government kills people left and right.
Caytano disputed the HRW figures that 12,000 people have died in President Duterte’s war on drugs and challenged the group to support it claims with facts. With Sara Susanne Fabunan
