May 12, 2016

Rohingya name causing diplomatic distress

located:	Myanmar
editor:	Vanessa Ellingham

It's only fair that people be called by the terms they choose to identify with.

But that hasn't stopped Myanmar's new government from banning the name of the indigenous people it fails to recognise.

The new ambassador of the United States to Myanmar said he would keep using the term Rohingya for the persecuted Muslim minority, even after the government – controlled by Nobel prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi – asked him to refrain from it.

Members of the 1.1 million-strong group, most of whom live in desperate conditions in a remote part of northwestern Myanmar, are seen by many Myanmar Buddhists as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh. The term Rohingya is a divisive issue.

Scot Marciel took over as the head of the US mission at a critical time after Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) won a landslide victory in historic elections, following decades of pro-democracy struggle.

“The normal US practice and the normal international practice is that communities anywhere have the right, or have the ability, to decide what they are going to be called,” Marciel said on Tuesday, in response to a question on whether he intended to continue using the term Rohingya.

“And normally when that happens, we would call them what they asked to be called. It’s not a political decision, it’s just a normal practice.”

Aung San Suu Kyi, once an icon of human rights activism, has been harshly criticised for her party's treatment of Myanmar's minorities since coming to power.