Malaysian PM Razak criticises Myanmar over Rohingya issue

It described the violence as “ethnic cleansing” on Saturday. In Yangon (inset), a Buddhist-led protest railed against Mr Najib.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Sunday called on the world to prevent an unfolding “genocide” carried out by Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims, as a vicious crackdown triggers an exodus of the persecuted ethnic minority.

In Yangon, militant Buddhist monks organised an anti-Malaysia protest in response.

Ye Htut, former presidential spokesman and information minister under the previous Myanmar government’s administration, said Aung San Suu Kyi should use her influence and power with the worldwide community to counter accusations that the military has committed human rights abuses against the Rohingya in Rakhine.

Dr Mahathir also said that when Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested during his reign, he wrote a letter and sent someone to meet her. Najib asked a raucous crowd. We must and we will defend Muslims and Islam.

“UN, please do something”.

“We will do everything we can, either protesting or sending out signed requests, because we do not want to give even an inch of our country and we cannot accept the fact that they insult our nationality, so even if we need to take up arms, we might do so”, he said. “The world can not say it is not our problem. It is our problem”.

Thousands of Malaysians and Rohingya refugees gathered at Titiwangsa Stadium yesterday morning to protest the alleged state-endorsed brutality against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.

They have joined up to 500,000 undocumented Rohingya who have been living in Bangladesh after arriving from Myanmar in waves since the 1970s.

Some soldiers are accused of gang rape, torture and destroying entire villages in Rakhine state.

Sources in Myanmar said to VOA that after the Bangladeshi minister said his government would allow some Rohingyas to enter Bangladesh, more Rohingyas have begun attempting to cross over to Bangladesh. In the interview she claimed that the problems in Burma’s Rakhine state was being exaggerated by the worldwide community so much so that “everything seems worse than it really is”.

The concern towards the oppressed Rohingyas in Myanmar is not about Malaysia interfering in the country’s affairs, but it is based on humanitarian grounds, said Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi. Both he and the fund deny any wrongdoing.

He also told the paper that Najib’s actions could stoke religious extremism, and that he was using the issue to score political points among Malaysian citizens.

“I’m not saying there are no difficulties, but it helps if people recognize the difficulty and are more focused on resolving these difficulties rather than exaggerating them so that everything seems worse than it really is”, she added.

More than 1.1 million stateless Rohingya Muslims, whom the Burmese call “Bengalis” because they consider them illegal immigrants from neighboring Bangladesh, live in troubled Rakhine state.