Former UN chief to advise Myanmar on ‘Rakhine state’

Yangon / AFP

Former UN chief Kofi Annan will advise Myanmar’s new government on resolving conflicts in Rakhine, a region divided on religious grounds and home to the stateless Muslim Rohingya, it was announced on Wednesday.
The country’s western state is deeply scarred by bouts of sectarian bloodshed in 2012 that forced more than 100,000 Rohingya into squalid displacement camps.
The Rohingya, a minority in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar, are denied citizenship and face severe restrictions on their movements and access to health care and other basic services.
Finding a solution for the group, who are reviled by Buddhist nationalists, has posed a tough challenge to the new civilian administration led by Aung San Suu Kyi.
The veteran democracy activist has come under fire from international rights groups for failing publicly to address the plight of the Rohingya as she seeks to avoid stoking further unrest over the sensitive issue.
On Wednesday her office announced the formation of an advisory panel that will be chaired by former UN secretary general Annan and focus on “finding lasting solutions to the complex and delicate issues in the Rakhine State”.
A spokesman for the Kofi Annan Foundation confirmed the news and said the nobel laureate would travel to Myanmar in early September.