Photo: Rohingya migrants squeezed aboard an overcrowded vessel earlier this year.
In the latest example of the international community condemning Myanmar’s inaction on the Rohingya crisis, a senior adviser to US President Barack Obama has called the situation “an abomination”.
In an interview with Al Jazeera, Ben Rhodes, the President’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication, cited the “willful refusal of the [Myanmar] government to stop the persecution of the Rohingya” as one of the “biggest challenges” facing the country.
“The fact of the matter is that what’s happening to the Rohingya population is an abomination,” he said.
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Ben Rhodes, left, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
He was responding to a question about whether US policy towards Cuba had any hope of success after the disappointment – interviewer Mehdi Hasan called it “failure” – of Myanmar’s democratic transition.
“If the measure is perfection, then Burma is not there yet,” he replied. “If the measure if progress, I think we’ve seen progress. You have more political space, more political participation.”
The Obama administration has generally applauded the country’s reform process, repealing international sanctions.
Nonetheless, Rhodes continued, the US has warned Myanmar to allow the Rohingya, tens of thousands of who were confined to dismal internal displacement camps following communal violence in 2012, to return home and become citizens.
“What we have said to Burma is: for your democratic reform to succeed, for you to be prosperous and stable, you cannot treat a minority population in that way,” said Rhodes.
Watch the video here.
