John Philip Newell on the Plight of the Rohingya

In 2014 I wrote a book entitled The Rebirthing of God in which I included a chapter on Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, as a modern icon of compassion. Since then she has become the de facto leader of Myanmar (formerly Burma). Many of you will be aware that, to the surprise and shock of the international community, Suu Kyi has not spoken out against the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims of her own country at the hands of the Myanmar military since 2017. Tens of thousands have been murdered and hundreds of thousands have had to flee as refugees into neighbouring Bangladesh. Suu Kyi rejected allegations of genocide when she appeared at the International Court of Justice in December 2019. And in January of this year the United Nations ordered the government of Myanmar to take measures to protect members of its Rohingya community from genocide. Thus far nothing has changed. 

Although I have publicly denounced this atrocity since it became known to the world in 2017, I should also have put my judgement into writing. I am sorry that I failed to do so, and I regret any confusion this has caused among my readership. I have asked the publisher of The Rebirthing of God (now Turner Publishing Company in Nashville) to remove the chapter on Suu Kyi from any future sales of the book but have not yet heard their decision. 

For more information on the plight of the Rohingya people today, click here.  

John Philip Newell