Friday, March 15, 2013

Growing alarm over Aung San Suu Kyi...

Hundreds of angry protesters confronted Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi this morning over her seeming conciliatory stance over a controversial Chinese-operated copper mine project commissioned by the government in the north of the country. It was the first time the 67-year-old Suu Kyi, who spent 15 of her 21 years in the country under house arrest, has become the target of popular protest.

Suu Kyi's motorcade was surrounded by an estimated 500 villagers protesting the Letpadaung copper mine project as she attempted to explain the controversial findings of a parliamentary inquiry which she chaired into the project.

Dismay has been growing over the Nobel Prize winner and democracy icon's seeming willingness to bend to the government in Naypyidaw over a series of issues, of which the copper mine project is the latest. The leader of the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi has also been criticized for not being more aggressive in criticizing the government of treatment of the Rohingya and Kachin minorities.

 After the government cracked down violently on the protesters in November and December, authorities apologized to the Buddhist clergy who were injured and appointed Suu Kyi to chair a government-led commission to investigate. However, the report released this week contradicted an earlier Human Rights Watch report calling for full accountability from the perpetrators of the violence. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Myanmar's Suu Kyi faces flak for backing copper mine...
  2. Myanmar copper mine told to compensate for land grabs...
  3. Land grabs rise in Myanmar’s ethnic Karen areas...
  4. Myanmar villagers fight eviction...
  5. Aung San Suu Kyi facing backlash for silence on Rohingya abuses...
  6. Ethnic cleansing in Myanmar: does Aung San Suu Kyi care about the Rohingyas?

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