U.S. Vice President Mike Pence addressed the UN Security Council on Wednesday over the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority. Violence against the Rohingya have forced more than 421,000 to flee to Bangladesh.
Pence had some strong words for the Myanmar government and the UN. From Yahoo! News:
Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday pressed Myanmar’s military to end its violent campaign against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority and urged the U.N. Security Council to respond forcefully to the resulting humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia.“Unless this violence is stopped, which justice demands, it will only get worse, and it will sow seeds of hatred and chaos that may well consume the region for generations to come and threaten the peace of us all,” Pence told the U.N. Security Council.Pence warned that the military’s “terrible savagery” — systematic destruction of Rohingya villages, killings of civilians, leading to an exodus of hundreds of thousands into neighboring Bangladesh — is “ultimately endangering the sovereignty and security of the entire region.”The vice president’s remarks, the strongest language from Washington to date, betrayed growing U.S. impatience with Myanmar (formerly Burma) leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has drawn criticism for her relatively muted response.On Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to Suu Kyi, long revered at home and around the world as the country’s champion for democratic rule, and “urged the Burmese government and military to facilitate humanitarian aid and confront the allegations of human rights abuses,” Pence said.“And while we welcome Suu Kyi’s comments that returning refugees have nothing to fear, the United States renews our call on Burma’s security forces to end their violence immediately and support diplomatic efforts for a long-term solution,” the vice president added.President Trump wants “this Security Council and the United Nations to take strong and swift action to bring this crisis to an end and give hope and help to the Rohingya people in their hour of need,” Pence said.
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