File - Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh says every single Rohingyans deserve to have human rights. Source: Shutterstock
MALAYSIAN-BORN Hollywood celebrity Michelle Yeoh said she was appalled
by the poor living conditions plaguing hundreds of thousands of Rohingya
Muslims who fled to Bangladesh to escape violence in Burma (Myanmar).
“It is very important that we’re here, because what the Rohingya people
are going through is despicable and it’s very, very tragic. It should
not be allowed,” she said. “Every single one of them deserves to have
the human rights that should be given to them.”
Yeoh, who is a goodwill ambassador for the UN Development Programme,
visited a string of packed refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar as
part of a Malaysian delegation led by her country’s military chief,
reported The Star.
She played Burma’s defacto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2011 film The Lady, a biopic chronicling the Nobel Peace laureates struggle to bring democracy to the Southeast Asian nation.
Around 688,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Rakhine to Bangladesh in
recent months to escape an army crackdown following insurgent attacks on
security forces.
Suu Kyi has often been criticised for violence that led to the exodus of
Rohingya Muslims, who are denied citizenship in Burma and regarded as
one of the world’s most oppressed ethnic communities.
Despite coming under fire, veteran US mediator Bill Richardson on Friday
said Suu Kyi remains Burma’s best hope for change, days after he got
into a fight with the Nobel laureate and quit an international panel
advising her government on the Rohingya crisis.
Richardson said Suu Kyi – whom he described as a long-time friend – had
developed a “siege mentality” in her position as Burma’s State
Counsellor, the country’s civilian leader, but added that Western
governments should continue to engage with her.
“The relationship with the West, with human rights groups, with the
United Nations, with the international media is terrible,” he told Reuters by phone from New Mexico on Friday.
“And I think Aung San Suu Kyi has brought this upon herself, the
constant disparagement of the international community, which I think can
be helpful to her … She seems isolated. She doesn’t travel much into
the country. I think she’s developed a classic bubble.”
Rohingya refugees are seen in a refugee camp at no-man’s land at the
Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh January 12, 2018.
Source: Reuters/Tyrone Siu
Richardson said he resigned from the advisory board on Wednesday, during
its first visit to troubled Rakhine State, saying it was conducting a
“whitewash”. Suu Kyi’s office said on Thursday her government had asked
Richardson to step down and accused him of pursuing “his own agenda”.
Burma’s armed forces have been accused by Rohingya witnesses and human
rights activists of carrying out killings, rapes and arson in Rakhine in
a campaign senior officials in the United Nations and United States
have described as ethnic cleansing. Burma rejects that label and has
denied nearly all the allegations.
Bangladesh and Burma agreed earlier this month to complete the voluntary
repatriation of all the refugees. The remaining members of the advisory
board on Wednesday toured temporary camps the government has set up for
returnees.
She played Burma’s defacto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2011 film The Lady, a biopic chronicling the Nobel Peace laureates struggle to bring democracy to the Southeast Asian nation.
