Arakan News Agency
Myanmar army chief General Min Aung Hlaing on Saturday defended his forces’ operations against the Rohingya (Muslim minority), asking his country to “unite” against them because they are “Bengali” as he sees fit.
General Min Aung Hlaing repeated the theory in comments posted on his Facebook page on Friday. “They demand recognition of them as Rohingya, a group that has never been a ethnic group in Myanmar. The Bengalis issue is a national issue and we need unity to clarify the truth. “
General Aung Hlaing’s defense of his army’s operations comes amid international condemnation of the violence that has thrown Bangladesh into an arduous task of harboring and feeding the refugees who flock to it.
Myanmar Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticized for her silence on the repression of the Rohingya minority, which she has asked her government to refer to as Arakan Muslims.
The Myanmar leader will address the nation on Tuesday, addressing the crisis, thus breaking her silence for the first time since the outbreak of violence.
Since August 25th, the Myanmar army has committed genocide against Rohingya Muslims in Arakan province, killing and injuring thousands of civilians in operations described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres as “ethnic cleansing”.
Some 400,000 people have fled to Bangladesh since then, according to the United Nations.
The attacks came two days after Annan handed over to the Myanmar government a final report on fact-finding in the violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Arakan.
The situation of the Rohingya Muslims has long been a thorny issue in Myanmar, where many Buddhists, who make up the majority of the country, consider the Rohingya “illegitimate immigrants from Bangladesh and deny the existence of the Rohingya ethnicity and insist they are Bengali.”
