Suu Kyi: Terrorists are to blame

Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Photo / AP

Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said her Government is protecting everyone in Rakhine state and that "terrorists" were behind an "iceberg of misinformation" about the Rohingya crisis.

Violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma's northwestern Rakhine state has sent nearly 125,000 of them fleeing over the border to Bangladesh in just over 10 days.

There have been widespread protests against their treatment.

Speaking with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Suu Kyi blamed Rohingya militants, who attacked police posts in August, for spreading false information about the crisis with the intention of destabilising the region.

She said "that kind of fake information which was inflicted on the Deputy Prime Minister was simply the tip of a huge iceberg of misinformation calculated to create a lot of problems between different communities and with the aim of promoting the interest of the terrorists", according to a social media statement.

Turkey's Deputy Prime Minister had posted images on Twitter of alleged killings of Rohingya civilians that later turned out not to be from Burma.

Suu Kyi was also quoted as saying: "We know very well, more than most, what it means to be deprived of human rights and democratic protection. So we make sure that all the people in our country are entitled to protection of their rights as well as the right to, and not just political but social and humanitarian defence." United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres yesterday warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing and regional destabilisation. He urged the UN Security Council to press for restraint and calm in a rare letter to express concern that the violence could spiral into a "humanitarian catastrophe".

Reporters saw hundreds more exhausted Rohingya arriving in boats near the Bangladeshi border village of Shamlapur yesterday, suggesting the exodus was far from over.

The latest violence in Rakhine state began on August 25 when Rohingya insurgents attacked dozens of police posts and an army base. The ensuing clashes and a military counter-offensive have killed at least 400 people and triggered the exodus of villagers to Bangladesh.

Burmese officials blamed Rohingya militants for the burning of homes and civilian deaths, but rights monitors and Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh say the Burmese army is trying to force them out with a campaign of arson and killings.