Former Prime Minister David Cameron has recorded his disappointment with Myanmar state counsellor Aung Saan Suu Kyi over the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the country, particularly over her claim that “they are Bangladeshis,” reports Hindustan Times.
Cameron recalled his 2013 meeting with Suu Kyi in his memoir, “For The Record,” released yesterday. The Myanmar leader was feted by western countries for her pro-democracy struggle but is now a pariah due to her not condemning or acting on the Rohingya issue.
“The disappointment came from Burma. I had visited the long-time military dictatorship a year earlier, just after it had taken its first steps towards democracy by holding by-elections. No UK PM had visited since independence in 1948.”
More likely Suu Kyi told Cameron in 2013 that the Rohingya were Bengali, not Bangladeshi, which is a nationality and not an ethnicity.https://t.co/n8wT9XHnQD @htTweets
— Derek Tonkin (@DerekTonkinUK) September 19, 2019
Britain continues to refer to the country by its earlier name of Burma.
David Cameron, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, released a new book on Thursday about his time in office between 2010 and 2016. The... https://t.co/3jts71NwwV
— Ro Zaber (@Zaberrahman1993) September 20, 2019
Cameron writes: “I met the pro-democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, who would soon run for the presidency, and reflected on what an amazing story hers could be: from fifteen years of house arrest to transforming her country into a real democracy.”
“However, by the time she came to visit London in October 2013, all eyes were on her country’s Rohingya Muslims, who were being driven out of their homes by Buddhist Rakhines.
There were stories of rape, murder and ethnic cleansing.
The world is watching, I told her.
Her reply was telling: ‘They are not really Burmese. They are Bangladeshis.’ She became de facto leader in 2015, and the violence against the Rohingya went on.
