On Tuesday, while Myanmar’s commander in chief was shopping for weaponry in Russia, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s de facto civilian leader, gave a speech in Singapore in which she made no mention of the bloodletting by the nation’s armed forces. Thousands of Rohingya are believed to have been killed in northern Rakhine State. United Nations officials have raised the prospect that the violence could be considered genocide, and officials at the United States State Department have debated using the term, according to American diplomats. But Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, blamed the violence on “terrorist activities, which was the initial cause of events leading to the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine.”On Aug. 25, 2017, Rohingya militants, mostly armed with makeshift weapons, carried out strikes on police posts and an army station in northern Rakhine, killing a dozen security forces. Myanmar’s military, which is known as the Tatmadaw, says that its actions were “clearance operations,” in response to the Rohingya raids.

Source: New York Times August 25, 2018 12:45 UTC