Amnesty International said Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech showed the leader and her government were “burying their heads in the sand over the horrors unfolding in Rakhine state”.

Hindu’s Fleeing Rakhine Violence Hope for Shelter in Modi’s India
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh and NEW DELHI, India — Caught in the crossfire between Myanmar’s military and Muslim insurgents, hundreds of Hindus who have fled to Bangladesh are placing their hopes on the Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in neighboring India.

Nearly 500 are sheltered in a cleared-out chicken farm in a Hindu hamlet in Bangladesh’s southeast, a couple of miles from where most of the 421,000 self-identifying Rohingya Muslims who have also fled violence in Myanmar since Aug. 25 are living in makeshift camps.

The Hindu refugees say they are scared of going back to their villages in Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s restive Rakhine state, but also wary of staying in mostly Muslim Bangladesh.

Modi’s government, meanwhile, is making it easier for Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and other minorities from Bangladesh and Pakistan to gain citizenship in India.

It will not be easy for secular India to accept the Myanmar Hindu refugees’ demand while the government is pushing for the deportation of self-identifying Rohingya Muslims.

Modi’s government has already been criticized by activists for not speaking out against Myanmar’s military offensive, and accused of vilifying the self-identifying Rohingya in the country to seek legal clearance for their deportation.

Finally, 25 days after the first village was burned, Suu Kyi addressed the world. In a televised global address from Myanmar's capital, in front of army officials and foreign diplomats, Suu Kyi declined to criticize the military. Instead of reaching out to the Rohingya, she questioned the international outcry itself. Her government, she said, was "concerned" about reports of villages burning in Rakhine, but had to weigh "allegations and counterallegations" before taking action. She argued that the international community should pay more attention to areas where there was peace than areas where there was conflict. "It is very little known that the great majority of Muslims in the Rakhine state have not joined the exodus," she claimed. "It is sad that in meeting our diplomatic community, I am obliged to focus on just a very few of our problems." Her remarks prompted outrage. "Her speech tried to sugarcoat ethnic cleansing," says Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.