Amid UN Excitement at Aung San Suu Kyi, Rohingya Forgotten? | Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, September 21 -- After Aung San Suu Kyi met with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday morning, a floor below a throng of media and even Ambassadors gathered. There was a smattering of applause as Aung San Suu Kyi walked from the elevator to the adjacent rostrums at the stakeout. 

ASSK, as many here call her, was in the past a UN staff member, and now an icon. But still more messy questions exist, such as her silence on the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar, or Burma, as some here call it. 

Ban Ki-moon's summary of their meeting did not mention the issue; nor did ASSK or the questions Ban's spokesman selected. Yes, ASSK is in context a rare UN good news or success story. But particularly for that reason, questions of the stateless Rohingya who suffer religious prejudice in majority Buddhist Myanmar as Muslim should not be swept under the rug. Watch this site. 

Footnote: In the crowd awaiting ASSK was the Permanent Representative of New Zealand, with his cell phone out to take a photo. Such is the star power of ASSK. Then, just after the stakeout, a meeting of the Latin American grouping CELAC was suspended, with "no consensus" after a Paraguay arrival. But that's another story - watch this site.

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