Ex-UN chief assures new Rakhine commission impartial

By Kyaw Ye Lynn

YANGON, Myanmar

Former United Nations secretary general Kofi Annan has wrapped up a fact-finding trip for an advisory commission to Myanmar's troubled Rakhine State with a vow to "impartially" compile facts from both Buddhist and Muslim communities.

Since 2012, communal violence between the two communities in Myanmar's western-most region has left nearly 100 people dead and about 140,000 people displaced.

“I want to say again that the commission would listen to both communities, and act fairly,” Kofi Annan told a press conference in the country’s former capital Yangon on Thursday.

“We invite all people who have doubts on the commission’s impartiality. We want to talk to any kind of people no matter if they like us or not,” he said.

"I believe that the commission´s findings and recommendations help to solve the problems between Rakhine and Rohingya communities," Annan told the gathered audience, using a word for the Muslim community that nationalists would rather not hear.

On Tuesday, Buddhist protesters had greeted Annan at an airport in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, as members of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine -- established through an agreement between State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s office and the Kofi Annan Foundation -- arrived to meet local government officials, community leaders and the displaced.

Talking to Anadolu Agency on the phone, Tin Htoo from the nationalist Rakhine National Network accused the commission of interfering in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

“Though we respect Kofi Annan and his reputation, we don’t want such a commission,” he said. “The commission should not include non-Burmese persons who don't care for our views and our history."

Such nationalists refuse to use the term Rohingya, instead referring to the Muslim ethnic groups as Bengali, which suggests that they are interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh.

In a recent press conference, Aung Sann Su Kyi asked international diplomats and United Nations human rights envoy Yanghee Lee to avoid using the term, for fear of the controversy with nationalist groups it may cause.

But when asked Thursday, if he too had been asked to avoid using the term, Annan said he had received no such instruction.

“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi didn’t ask me not to use the word,” he said, using the Myanmar honorific Daw which means madame.

Asked by journalists at the press conference if the commission or any member had witnessed any form of persecution during their visit, Annan said “no”.

However, commission member Aye Lwin, core member and founder of Religions for Peace in Myanmar, underlined that the visit is just the first of many state-managed visits.