5 dubious claims Suu Kyi made in her speech

Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi today for the first time addressed the situation in Rakhine amid the growing international criticism following ethnic cleansing that forced more than 400,000 minority Rohingya Muslims from the country.

However, some of the claims she made in her speech are found to be dubious and contradictory to the findings of an official report commissioned by the government and compiled by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, according to a CNN report.

Here are five dubious claims Suu Kyi made in her speech.

"We want to find out why this exodus is happening"

Suu Kyi stressed that the government does not know the root causes of the crisis. 

This was peculiar, especially because she repeatedly referred to the Annan report, the Final Report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State released in August, which had identified several key issues.

The lack of citizenship for stateless Rohingya Muslims, socio-economic challenges facing Rakhine, and police and military action in the state were among the issues addressed by the Annan report.

"Subsequent military and police operations led to tens of thousands of Muslims fleeing across the border to Bangladesh," the report said after attacks on border police posts in October 2016.

The report further said that while Myanmar has every right to defend its own territory, a highly militarised response is unlikely to bring peace to the area.

Kofi Annan also said in a statement that there was risk of another cycle of violence and radicalisation which would further deepen the chronic poverty in Rakhine State unless concerted action was taken soon by the government, aided by all its sectors and the society.

"Myanmar does not fear international scrutiny"

Suu Kyi said she is aware that the world's attention is now focused on Myanmar, however, she claimed her government does not fear international scrutiny.  

"If you are interested in joining us in our endeavors, please let us know," Suu Kyi said, adding "We can arrange for you to visit these areas and to ask (those who have stayed) why they have not fled, why they have chosen to remain in their villages."

The situation in Rakhine State may change following her speech; however, access to the area has been, so far, heavily restricted to media, diplomats, and human rights groups.

Earlier this month, a media trip to Rakhine State was organised by the government, in which journalists found it next to impossible to acquire permits to visit the area independently and interview people without official interference, according to the CNN report.

The government was denying aid workers access to the state, according to Amnesty International.

In January, UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Yanghee Lee was prevented from visiting some parts of the state for "security reasons".

In December, Kofi Annan also criticised the government's denial of access to Rakhine to aid groups and other NGOs.

"The great majority of Rakhines in the state have not joined the exodus"

Of the Rakhine State's population of around 3.1 million, some one million are Rohingya Muslims.

According to the UN, over 400,000 Rohingyas have so far fled to Bangladesh since August 25, joining the around one million Rohingyas who were already in the country having traveled there during earlier times of unrest.

Earlier this month, the Myanmar government had said 176 out of 471, or 37.4% of all Rohingya villages were empty of people, and an additional 34 villages were "partially abandoned."

Suu Kyi in her speech said, "50% of the villages of Muslims are intact."

However, Suu Kyi did not use the word "Rohingya", a politically charged term in Myanmar which the government has repeatedly refused to endorse, in her speech to describe Muslims living in the Rakhine State.

Thus, it becomes unclear whether she referred to the state's entire population, or specifically the Rohingya population, who have been disproportionally affected by recent violence according to the UN and others.

Suu Kyi used the term "Rohingya" only once in her speech when she referred to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), a militant group.

According to Penny Green, a professor of law at Queen Mary University of London, Suu Kyi chose to use the word in relation to a terrorist group, that means that is the only identity that Rohingya will be attached to, from her perspective and she hopes from the international perspective.

"All people (in Rakhine) have access to education and health care services"

Suu Kyi claimed that the Rohingyas in Rakhine have access to the same services as their non-Muslim neighbors.

However, her claim is contradicted by the Annan Commission's report.

The report had found that Muslims, in particular the internally displaced persons, are "deprived of freedom of movement".

According to the report, movement restrictions have a wide range of detrimental effects, including reduced access to education, health and services, strengthened communal segregation, and reduced economic interaction.

The report also found that access to health is particularly low within the Muslim community in the northern and central parts of Rakhine state.

In some areas, Muslims face discriminative obstacles that prevent available lifesaving services from being accessed, the report added.

The internally displaced population in Rakhine State doesn't have the same level of access at all to anything, Azeem Ibrahim, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Policy, told CNN.

"No clearance operations since September 5"

Suu Kyi said that the government efforts to "restore the situation to normalcy" are succeeding, adding that "Since the fifth of September, there have been no armed clashes and there have been no clearance operations."

However, more than a dozen burned villages and fires were shown since that date in satellite imagery examined by the Amnesty International, while, according to Human Rights Watch, at least 62 villages were torched between August 25 and September 14.

On August 25, the latest round of violence kicked off with a major military and security operation that included helicopter attacks and the burning of Rohingya villages in response to an attack by the Rohingya militants that killed 12 security officers.

Armed non-Muslim groups were encouraged to attack their Muslim neighbors, refugees told CNN.