Arakan News Agency
A “food flotilla” that a Malaysian Muslim organization plans to send to restive northern Arakan state to help ethnic Rohingya affected by communal violence is “an insult,” Myanmar’s home affairs minister said Friday.
Lt. Gen. Kyaw Swe, who served as minister of border affairs under the previous government, made the comment to reporters after a meeting of Myanmar’s central anti-human trafficking organization about the boats laden with 200 metric tons of rice, medical aid, and essential supplies for Rohingya Muslim communities, which are scheduled to depart Malaysia on Jan. 10.
“It is impossible to accept it because it doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It must be done as a government-to-government matter. They can’t go straight to Arakan state.”
“It shouldn’t be accepted, and we won’t accept it,” he said. “If they want to do it, then they have to do it through the foreign affairs ministry and must inform the central government. We can’t accept it if they just do it with the Arakan state government.”
“It is an insult,” he said. “We won’t accept it. ”
Zaw Htay, spokesman of the President’s Office, warned on Wednesday that the organization, which has not yet obtained permission from the Myanmar government to enter the country, can do so when the boats arrive or risk being stopped or attacked by Myanmar security forces, and its crew deported.
The Indonesian government has already sent 10 shipping containers of food, baby food, and clothes for Rohingya affected by the violence in northern Arakan.
The two predominantly Muslim countries called on Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader, to allow unimpeded humanitarian access to the areas affected by violence when they and other member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met with her on Dec. 19 to discuss the crisis in northern Arakan.
