Hands Tied by Old Hope, Diplomats in Myanmar Stay Silent<br />Charles Petrie said that Western donors and the U.N. have not always been helpful,<br />In a televised address on Thursday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi pushed back against international criticism<br />and promised to personally oversee efforts to bring peace to Rakhine and repatriate those who have fled to Bangladesh.<br />A nation does not emerge from 50 years of military dictatorship without political wounds, they say, asserting<br />that pushing Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, whose famous resolve can tend toward obduracy, could be counterproductive.<br />In the speech, as in an address delivered to foreign envoys last month, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi declined to tackle accusations<br />that the military has unleashed arson, murder and rape on the Rohingya.<br />But in Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial capital, where the diplomatic corps is based, there is still reluctance<br />to call to task publicly either the military or the civilian administration led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.<br />Diplomats say Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi used to express sympathy for the Rohingya in private, explaining<br />that she could not speak out because of widespread hatred for them among the Buddhist majority.
