AUNG SAN SUU KYI IS LYING ABOUT THE ROHINGYA PEOPLE

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: All people living in the Rakhine state have access to education and healthcare services without discrimination. Healthcare services are being provided throughout the state, including hard-to-reach areas with new mobile clinics. The government has upgraded 300 schools in Rakhine. The vocational and technical training programs have begun. Muslim students also have access to higher education without any discrimination.

AMY GOODMAN: Aung San Suu Kyi also addressed criticism that the Rohingya are not granted Burmese citizenship.

AUNG SAN SUU KYI: With regard to citizenship, a strategy with a specific timeline has been developed to move forward the national verification process. But this is a process which needs cooperation from all communities. In some Muslim communities, their leaders have decided that they are not to join in the verification process. We would appreciate it if all friends could persuade them to join in the process, because they have nothing to lose by it.

AMY GOODMAN: Azeem Ibrahim, could you explain this verification process, but also talk about the significance of Aung San Suu Kyi? A number of Nobel Peace Prize winners have called for her peace prize to be revoked.

AZEEM IBRAHIM: Well, Aung San Suu Kyi has simply evolved from a peace campaigner into a full-time politician now. And she has simply made a political calculation that the issue of the Rohingya is simply not worth utilizing any political capital over. There is simply no point in her alienating the military or the extreme British clergy. She has went through immense sacrifice and immense struggle to get to where she is. This is her life's work, to become leader of our country, and she's not willing to give that up for the human rights of this minority group.

But the clip that you just played, in terms of, you know, the Rohingya having access to healthcare, education and a verification process for citizenship, all of those are patently false. I have visited those camps myself. The Rohingya are confined to these massive, huge concentration camps in which they are restricted. They have restriction on freedom of movement, restriction on having children, on getting married, to access to education. This idea that they have access to healthcare is just totally untrue. You know, I've seen, myself, that there's approximately one doctor to about 80,000 people in those camps. And there's almost—the literacy rate amongst the children is about 3 percent that attend school.

And this verification process that she actually refers to is from 1993, and it is so complex and absurd, in that every Rohingya has to demonstrate—that has crossed the border into Bangladesh, has to produce papers as to where they crossed the border, from the Bangladeshi authorities, which they obviously can't, as refugees. Then they have to demonstrate where they've actually lived in Myanmar, which they can't, because they've all been burnt down, all their houses. And then they have to demonstrate their family history with identity cards, which were never issued.

So this is essentially just a process in terms of trying to pacify the international community. It's very telling that her speech was actually made in English, and on many Myanmar channels, it wasn't even translated. This was an attempt simply to try to pacify the international community and try to delay—this was a delaying tactic from her behalf, until the military actually finishes all its operations. And it is deeply unfortunate that she has simply now become a shield for this military action.

Democracy Now/PBS