Dalai Lama urges Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi to speak out on migrant crisis

NEW DELHI, May 28 (UPI) -- Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi should speak out on the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, the Dalai Lama said Thursday.

In an interview with The Australian, the Tibetan spiritual leader said turning a blind eye to 3,000 stateless migrants is a sign there's "something wrong with humanity's way of thinking."

"Ultimately, we are lacking concern for others' lives, others' well-being," he said.

Suu Kyi was highly regarded as a champion of democracy during her 15 years of house arrest, but in her new role as a politician, she has remained silent about the persecution of a religious and ethnic minority in Myanmar.

Voice of America reported Suu Kyi recently said she never sought to be a human rights champion. The move, however, is strategic, according to her critics, who say that defending the Rohingya could derail her potential run for Myanmar's presidency.

The Dalai Lama, arguably the world's most renowned subject of persecution, said there is no way to justify Buddhist-instigated violence against the 1.3 million Rohingya Muslims inside Myanmar.

He appealed to Myanmar's Buddhists to "remember the face of the Buddha" when dealing with those less powerful.

The Dalai Lama's appeal to Suu Kyi on Thursday is not his first, he said. He has appealed twice before Suu Kyi in person, in London and the Czech Republic.

South African archbishop Desmond Tutu also indirectly criticized Suu Kyi's silence on the migrant crisis during a recent video address to an Oslo conference.

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice you have chosen the side of the oppressor," he said.

An estimated 2,000 Rohingya Muslim migrants are still stranded at sea. Their whereabouts are unknown since a May 1 crackdown in Thailand led human traffickers to abandon the ships of smuggled people.