Eastern promise

In an interview with The Post Sunday,the Burmese leader… declined to say whether he would support changes to the constitution to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to run for president. He wavered on previous commitments to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to open an office. He supported the military playing a leading political role and said that,as president,he makes decisions collectively with the National Defence and Security Council,where the military chieftains sit. Asked about the Rohingya,a Muslim minority that has been the target of violence and ethnic cleansing by Burmas Buddhist majority,Thein Sein denied that they exist. There is no Rohingya among our races, he said,speaking through an official translator. We have Bengalis who were brought to do farming during colonial days. Some of them settled. He spoke approvingly of a 1982 law that has been used to deny them citizenship. The question for Washington is how best to encourage further reform.

From a leader in The Washington Post