Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi is failing to stop military violence against Rohingya Muslims in Burma

On 9 October, nine police officers were killed in Rakhine State, Burma. While the motivation and identity of the attackers remains unclear, the Burmese military responded with a series of operations against Rakhine’s Rohingya, a persecuted Muslim minority of approximately 1.3 million, blurring the lines between counter-insurgency and ethnic cleansing. Amid reports by Rohingya refugees and human rights organizations of arson, rape and killings, the lacklustre response of Burma's state counsellor and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi has been criticised by media and human rights groups.

While Western governments and media alike have praised Burma's transition from military to civilian rule, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy’s overwhelming victory in last year’s election merely overshadowed the fact that anti-Muslim sentiment remains pervasive throughout much of the country. Tensions in Rakhine in particular remain a festering wound in the country’s multi-ethnic society. And while the government appears to have reined in the Buddhist-nationalist Ma Ba Tha movement, which had heavily agitated against Muslims and the Rohingya in particular, the NLD has adopted the military’s narrative of the Rohingya constituting ‘illegal immigrants’ from Bangladesh. (Courtesy of independent.co.uk)