Dozens of protesters gathered in front of Yangon’s City Hall yesterday to denounce the criticism coming from foreign governments and international media over Myanmar’s conduct in the ongoing crisis in Rakhine State.
The protesters, many of them members of a group called Myanmar Political Watchers, said the criticism of the Myanmar government and the military ignore the “true situation in northern Rakhine.”
One placard read: “Intentionally biased international media are feeding incomplete information about Myanmar affairs and strengthening terrorism.”
“The Rakhine State issue is an internal matter and is a problem caused by illegal immigrants,” protester Daw Khine Khine Hsu told the state-run Myanmar News Agency. “But it has been described as an international affair. There are media that describe this affair in a biased, one-sided way.”
Many see this “one-sided” narrative as harmful to the country. Protester Myo Maung Maung Soe said: “Foreign countries should know the news as we hear it. Some [reports] contain truth, but some contain fake news. We are holding this [demonstration] because our country will be affected adversely if big foreign countries pressure us based on the covered-up news of the international media.”
Some of the protesters recycled arguments used previously by State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, who has sought to shift international attention away from the Rohingya, half a million of whom have been displaced from the country by military operations.
Protester Daw Khine Khine Hsu said: “Those who have died in the Rakhine affair include Hindus and ethnic nationals like Mro and Daingnet. In fact, Myanmar is being ethnically cleansed. If international media value human rights, they need to stand on the side of truth. If they are concerned for humanitarian matters, look at the ethnic Rakhines and Hindus.”
A veteran journalist named U Thiha Saw told the Myanmar News Agency it is up to local media to reveal the truth that international outlets are missing. He advised local reporters to “use journalistic techniques to discover the truth and to release it to the world in an attempt to refute the wrong information [presented by] the international media.”
The protest has held the same day as a government-guided diplomatic tour of northern Rakhine State. Following the tour, 20 senior foreign diplomats released a statement calling for an end to discrimination and for permission for a UN fact-finding mission to enter Rakhine to investigate alleged atrocities committed by the Myanmar military.
