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Take your Rohingyas back to Myanmar: Mahathir

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Update: 2018-08-14 11:34:58
Take your Rohingyas back to Myanmar: Mahathir

DHAKA: Urging Myanmar to take back the Rohingyas who fled into Bangladesh under persecution, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said the country must recognize the Rohingya people as its citizen because they had been living there for generations.

Mahathir, at 93 the world’s oldest prime minister, made the remarks during an interview given to an international news organization days before he heads to Beijing for his first visit since returning to power in a stunning electoral upset three months ago.

 “It is grossly unjust to do what they (Myanmar) have done, killing people, mass murder. That’s not the way civilized nations behave,” he said.

The previous government of predominantly Muslim Malaysia strongly supported the Rohingya, a persecuted minority in Myanmar who have fled by the hundreds of thousands to neighboring Bangladesh after a crackdown last year that some have called ethnic cleansing. Malaysia has said the displacement of Rohingya is no longer a domestic issue for Myanmar, in a rare departure from ASEAN’s non-interference policy in each other’s affairs.

Mahathir added that he was “very disappointed” in Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s failure to halt the persecution.

“Obviously she appears to be with the government of the day on how they treat the Rohingya. It’s a question of justice and human rights. You can’t do that,” he said.

He stopped short of committing Malaysia to taking in more Rohingya refugees, however, saying the 7 million legal and undocumented foreigners he said Malaysia already hosts are “far too many.”

BDST: 2130 HRS, AUG 14, 2018
AP/SMS

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