Human Rights Watch slams NLD for ignoring atrocities in Kachin state

Burmese NLD leader Aung Suu Kyi took a campaign in Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State before by-elections in May of last year.  Photo: Kachin News Group

In its annual state of the world report released last week Human Rights Watch (HRW) heavily criticized Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD) for failing to show concern for the rights of Burma's ethnic and religious minorities.

 In an introductory essay the group's executive director took Aung San Suu Kyi's party to task for its timid response to army abuses carried out during the ongoing Kachin conflict. According to Roth the NLD “has not pressed the military to curtail, let alone prosecute, war crimes being committed against the ethnic Kachin population as part of continuing counterinsurgency operations in the north.”

“The NLD has been disappointing in its reluctance to look beyond a quest for power to secure the rights of less popular, more marginal ethnic groups,” Roth writes.

Apart from the party's stance on the Kachin conflict Roth also took issue with the Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD's handling of the communal violence that hit Burma last year in Arakan (Rakhine) state. “Most dramatically, the NLD has refused to speak out against severe and violent persecution of the Muslim Rohingya in the west, many of whom are stateless as a result of a discriminatory nationality law, despite coming from families who have lived in Burma for generations. Suu Kyi has disappointed an otherwise admiring global audience by failing to stand up for a minority against whom many Burmese harbor deep prejudice.”

Although HRW was for many years one of the loudest voices in the international community regularly calling for Aung San Suu Kyi' release during her many years of imprisonment it remains unclear if she or her fellow party leaders will to take Roth's criticism into consideration. Speaking at a conference in Hawaii last week Aung San Suu Kyi reiterated her “fondness” for Burma's military following up on similar comments she made last year during an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour. The initial comments on CNN also drew criticism from some of Aung San Suu Kyi's long time international supporters shocked that the Nobel Peace Prize winner would express admiration for the army while it was carrying out a bloody offensive in Kachin state.

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