The president of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim country, said on Tuesday he would urge Myanmar’s leaders to address Buddhist-led violence against Muslims that he said could cause problems for Muslims elsewhere in the region.
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s visit later in the day to Myanmar comes a month after at least 43 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in four days of violence led by Buddhist mobs in the central city of Meikhtila, 130km north of the capital, Naypyitaw. That sparked a wave of anti-Muslim violence.
“If it’s not addressed in the best way possible, its impact is not good for Myanmar and even for Indonesians who are majority Muslims,” Yudhoyono told a Thomson Reuters Newsmaker event, a forum held in Singapore.
Calm has been restored in Meikhtila and other volatile central areas after authorities imposed martial law and dispatched troops. A Reuters examination showed it was well organised, abetted at times by police turning a blind eye.
“I will encourage that Myanmar will address it wisely, appropriately and prevent tension and violence. We in Indonesia are ready to support them to reach those goals,” he said.
His visit also follows deadly unrest last year against Muslim Rohingya, an ethnic minority, in western Rakhine State which Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights watchdog, described in a report on Monday as ethnic cleansing - a charge rejected by the government.
“There are other challenges in Myanmar like communal tensions facing the ethnic Rohingya,” Yudhoyono said.
