Myanmar violence tests Suu Kyi

Sectarian unrest in western Myanmar has threatened the fragile reform process and also put democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi under pressure to speak up for the stateless Rohingya, but the issue is a political minefield.
A lone resident rides his motorcycle past heavily damaged houses in Sittwe, capital of the western state of Rakhine.
Fifty people have been killed and scores wounded in communal clashes, state media say, and the UN has warned of "immense hardship" faced by thousands displaced by rioting.
But even some leading figures in Suu Kyi's own National League for Democracy have spoken out against the Rohingya, who have faced decades of persecution.
The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said on Saturday that 50 people had died, with 54 injured between May 28 and June 14 in Rakhine state, which has been convulsed by violence between local Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya.
The report did not say whether the updated toll included 10 Muslims beaten to death on June 3 by a Buddhist mob in apparent revenge for the rape and murder of a Rakhine woman, which sparked the violence.
A senior state official on Thursday said 29 people -- 16 Muslims and 13 Buddhists -- had been killed, but rights groups and other local sources believe the real figure in remote villages could be much higher.
Police enforced a curfew in the state capital Sittwe overnight, with New Light saying security forces were "restoring peace, stability and security" after the unrest, which poses a serious challenge to Myanmar's reform-minded government.
Nearly 31,900 people from both sides are being housed in 37 camps across Rakhine, officials in Sittwe said on Thursday, while thousands of homes have been torched.
A UN team witnessed the devastation on a two-day visit to the region, saying that around 10,000 displaced people were sheltering in Sittwe alone.
"It has come to the attention of the UN that the extent of the destruction of both the Rakhine and Islamic community in Sittwe is very large. These people are facing immense hardship," it said in a statement late Friday.
Pledging help for the affected area, UN special adviser Vijay Nambiar urged Myanmar to carry out a "full, impartial and credible" probe into the clashes.
The shells of torched houses dot Sittwe's streets, an AFP reporter in a predominantly Muslim village on the outskirts of city said late Friday, adding thousands of displaced people are sheltering from monsoon rains in tents.
"We want to go back to our place to stay back with our family, our children," Hla Myint, 56, a Muslim religious leader in Sittwe told AFP.
Aung San Suu Kyi, on her landmark visit to Europe, was repeatedly asked by reporters on Thursday about the clashes that have left dozens dead and more than 30,000 displaced.
Speaking in Geneva, she stressed "the need for rule of law", adding that without it "such communal strife will only continue".
But her carefully chosen comments fell short of offering strong support to Myanmar's estimated 800,000 Rohingya, described by the UN as one of the world's most persecuted minorities, and she is on the horns of a dilemma.
Myanmar's government considers the Rohingya to be foreigners, while many citizens -- including the local Rakhine Buddhist population -- see them as illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh and view them with hostility.
"Our appeal is to the UN, foreign nations, the Myanmar government and especially to Suu Kyi," Mohammad Islam, leader of Rohingya refugees living in a camp in the Bangladesh border town of Teknaf, told AFP on Wednesday.
"Aung San Suu Kyi hasn't done or said anything for us, yet the Rohingya including my parents campaigned for her in the 1990 elections."
Experts say the issue is fraught with political danger for Suu Kyi as she tries to build her credentials as a unifying figure who can represent minority groups as well as the democratic opposition among the majority Burmese.
UN rights envoy Tomas Ojea Quintana has said the Rakhine unrest poses a threat to the country's shift toward democracy, echoing earlier warnings by President Thein Sein that the country's "democratic process" could be damaged.
The government has signed ceasefires with several ethnic rebel groups around the country, yet ongoing fighting in northern Kachin state and the communal clashes in Rakhine have underscored the fragility of peace across Myanmar.
"It's a very explosive situation and whoever touches the issue will have to walk a very, very fine line," said Aung Naing Oo, a Myanmar expert with the Vahu Development Institute in Thailand.
"She (Suu Kyi) may stay on the wider issues of human rights without directly tackling the political issue."
Some of her own allies have expressed suspicion of the Rohingya, with certain key figures in Myanmar's pro-democracy campaign openly speaking out against the minority.
"We want to say clearly that Rohingya are not our ethnic race," said Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent former political prisoner and student leader involved in a failed uprising in 1988, rejecting their claim to be indigenous to Myanmar.
After violence erupted on June 8 in a Rohingya-dominated town, the NLD issued a statement lambasting those responsible for the "terrorist attack".