White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released a statement today condemning the Myanmar military’s counterinsurgency operations in Rakhine State, which have caused at least 300,000 people to flee their homes and left hundreds dead. Most of the victims have been Rohingya Muslims who have fled to squalid camps in Bangladesh.
“The massive displacement and victimization of people, including large numbers of the ethnic Rohingya community and other minorities, shows that Burmese security forces are not protecting civilians,” said Sanders’s statement.
“We are alarmed by the allegations of human rights abuses, including extrajudicial killings, burning of villages, massacres, and rape, by security forces and by civilians acting with these forces’ consent,” it went on.
While many critics of the violence in Rakhine State have petitioned Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to intervene on behalf of the Rohingyas, Sanders laid the responsibility with the military, calling on Myanmar security forces “to respect the rule of law, stop the violence, and end the displacement of civilians from all communities.”
She urged the Myanmar military to work with Suu Kyi’s government in implementing the recommendations of the Rakhine State Advisory Commission, which released its final report on August 24, just hours before the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army launched a series of attacks on police outposts, sparking the violence that continues today.
American politicians have been growing increasingly impatient with Myanmar. On September 7, a bipartisan group of senators — Democrats Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), Dianne Feinstein (Calif.) and Cory Booker (N.J.), and Republican John McCain (Ariz.) — issued a joint resolution condemning the “horrific acts of violence” against the Rohingya. They implored Suu Kyi “to play an active role in ending this humanitarian tragedy.”
Senators Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) and Cory Gardner (R-Colo.) have also expressed their concern for the Rohingya.
The outcry among American lawmakers has left many wondering whether President Trump will address the crisis. However, whereas the Obama administration made Myanmar a centerpiece of its foreign policy in Asia, Trump has reportedly not yet spoken with Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Part of the problem is that there is not the kind of strong interest in the White House as there used to be,” former US ambassador to Myanmar Derek Mitchell told the Washington Post.
Today’s White House statement may indicate that the president may soon break his silence on the deteriorating humanitarian situation.
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