Suu Kyi uses first appearance since UN damning report to discuss literature

Myanmar’s embattled leader Aung San Suu Kyi has resorted to literature instead of addressing the critical humanitarian issues regarding her country’s persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority in her first public appearance a day after a damning report by the United Nations confirmed that “genocide” had occurred in the country under her watch.

In her speech at the University of Yangon on Tuesday, Suu Kyi discussed poetry and literature instead of reviewing the scathing report compiled by a UN mission and published a day earlier, which concluded that Myanmar’s military had carried out a series of “shocking” rights violations against the Rohingya, including mass killings and gang rapes.

According to the damning report, the military had carried out "genocide" of the Rohingya in Rakhine state, the home province of majority of the Muslims, and was responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the states of Rakhine, Shan and Kachin.

In its final report released on Monday, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar said the country’s army, led by Commander-in-Chief Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, had carried out the “gravest crimes” against the Rohingya with “genocidal intent.”

The UN investigators called for an international probe and prosecution of Myanmar’s army chief and five other top military commanders for their crimes.

However, the Myanmar leader, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, chose instead to stay silent on all issues of politics and made no mention of the shocking report by the world body.

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Suu Kyi, whose government is now facing mounting calls to be investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes, spent almost all the afternoon chatting with students about the merits of Gone With the Wind, a novel by American writer Margaret Mitchell, and the differences between fiction and non-fiction.

Last year, Myanmar’s armed forces, backed by Buddhist extremists, launched a state-sponsored crackdown against the Rohingya in Rakhine under the pretext of a number of attacks on military posts blamed on the minority group.

The crackdown, once described by the UN as the textbook example of "ethnic cleansing," forced some 700,000 Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, where they are living in overcrowded refugee camps in dire humanitarian conditions.

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The new report further lashed out at Myanmar’s de facto leader for failing to give a proper response to the military’s brutalities, which have drawn widespread criticism from the UN and leading international organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in January to complete the voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees by 2020, followed up by an agreement with the UN last month.

Experts and Rohingya Muslim refugees in Bangladesh say a recent deal falls short of guaranteeing the Muslims’ safe return to Myanmar.

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