{"id":159816,"date":"2018-04-13T06:31:03","date_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=159816"},"modified":"2018-04-13T06:31:03","modified_gmt":"2018-04-13T10:31:03","slug":"duterte-apologizes-to-myanmar-leader-for-his-genocide-remark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2018\/04\/13\/duterte-apologizes-to-myanmar-leader-for-his-genocide-remark\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte apologizes to Myanmar leader for his \u2018genocide\u2019 remark"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his partner Honeylet welcome Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi prior to the opening of the 31st Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit and Related Summits at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Pasay City on November 13, 2017. KING RODRIGUEZ\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi\u00a0on Friday, April 13, for saying that \u201cgenocide\u201d was taking place in the latter\u2019s country.<\/p>\n

In a speech during a Palace event on April 5, Thursday, Duterte said he is willing to accept Rohingya refugees in the Philippines but stressed that Europe should help too.<\/p>\n

The Philippine leader\u2019s remark drew criticism from Myanmar\u2019s spokesman, Zaw Htay, who said that Duterte does not know anything about their country and has a tendency to \u201cspeak without restraint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Addressing Suu Kyi on Friday, The Chief Executive said, \u201cI will apologize to you but if you have noticed, my statement was almost a satire.”<\/p>\n

Duterte explained that he was speaking against European countries which accused Myanmar of rampant human rights violations but did little to address the Rohingya crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cSabi ko <\/em>(I said), \u2018Do you have any plans of providing a safe sanctuary even for a moment for those who are really the victims of war? There\u2019s a civil war going on\u2019 Wala, wala sila <\/em>(there\u2019s nothing, they have nothing),\u201d<\/em> Duterte said.<\/p>\n

“They keep on criticizing us, Aung [San Suu] Kyi,\u00a0pati \u2018yung iba. Ngayon, bakit sinabi ko \u2018yan<\/em>\u00a0(even the others. Now, why did I say that)? Madam Chancellor, let me confess to you publicly. I was doing…a very sarcastic [remark],” he added.<\/p>\n

The President then turned the tables on international bodies who criticized Suu Kyi over her alleged mishandling of the Rohingya issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cMadaldal kayo. O sige. Merong mga tao diyan na wala talagang mapuntahan <\/em>(You talked too much. There are people who have no place to go). <\/em>Why don\u2019t you provide the–any relief?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just talking about the human being. If you are really worried to death and keep on attacking [Aung San Suu Kyi] then you provide the relief. Accept the refugees,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

If other international bodies are willing to accept Rohingya Muslims in their country, Duterte noted that he is ready to accept his share of responsibility in the name of humanity.<\/p>\n

According to the United Nations (UN) and rights groups, several 700,000 people, mostly Rohingya, have fled from Myanmar into Bangladesh since August 2016.<\/p>\n

The UN and other Western countries said that Myanmar\u2019s action constitutes ethnic cleansing but Myanmar denied it, arguing that its security forces conducted a legitimate counter-insurgency operation against Rohingya militant attacks.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Rodrigo Duterte apologized to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi\u00a0on Friday, April 13, for saying that \u201cgenocide\u201d was taking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":159845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[22314,49649,13135],"class_list":["post-159816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-aung-san-suu-kyi","tag-genocide-remark","tag-president-rodrigo-duterte","mauthors-joanna-belle-deala","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}