September 11, 2020
Anti-migrant — and especially anti-Rohingya and anti-Rakhine — sentiments are undermining efforts to control the pandemic.
A man walks past while local residents gather near a blocked street in a lockdown area to help control the spread of the COVID-19, Friday, Sept. 11, 2020, in Yangon, Myanmar. Credit: AP Photo/Thein Zaw
As COVID-19 cases surge in Myanmar, the country’s famously serene State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi appears to be getting flustered. In a severe speech delivered September 2, she castigated “reckless and unsympathetic” nightclub owners, admonished Yangon residents for flouting COVID-19 restrictions, and threatened legal punishment against uncooperative citizens. On August 24, a week after the second wave began, she also warned against potential racial tension in Rakhine state, the epicenter of Myanmar’s renewed outbreak, reminding Burmese that recent violence there has made Myanmar a global “embarrassment.”