KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 3 (Reuters) - Malaysia described the violence against Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority as "ethnic cleansing" on Saturday, ahead of a planned solidarity march in Kuala Lumpur expected to be led by Prime Minister Najib Razak.

The strongly-worded statement came after Myanmar said on Friday that Malaysia should respect sovereign affairs and follow Association of Southeast Asian Nations' (ASEAN) policy of non-interference in other member countries' internal affairs.

"The fact that only one particular ethnicity is being driven out is by definition ethnic cleansing," Malaysia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"This practice must stop, and must be stopped immediately in order to bring back security and stability to the Southeast Asian region."

Muslim-majority Malaysia has been increasingly critical of Myanmar's handling of violence in northern Rakhine state that has sent hundreds of people fleeing across the border to Bangladesh, amid allegations of abuses by security forces.

The violence is the most serious bloodshed in Rakhine since communal clashes in 2012 that killed hundreds.

Persecution and poverty led thousands of Rohingya to flee Myanmar following the violence between Buddhists and Muslims there four years ago. Many of them were smuggled or trafficked to Thailand, Malaysia and beyond.

The Rohingya issue posed a threat to Malaysia's own security, Malaysia's foreign ministry said, adding that the high number of Rohingya in Malaysia and other neighbouring countries made this an "international matter".

Myanmar's deputy director general of the President's Office U Zaw Htay told the Myanmar Times on Friday that Malaysia should respect sovereign affairs.

Malaysia summoned Myanmar's ambassador last week over the crackdown on Rohingya. It also cancelled the national soccer team's friendly under-22 matches with Myanmar in protest.

Senior government leaders, led by Najib, are expected to participate in the solidarity march on Sunday. (Reporting by Praveen Menon; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.</s>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Malaysia's government on Saturday defended plans for a protest rally to condemn what it called "ethnic cleansing" of Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority, saying it has an obligation to ensure that its neighbor takes steps to prevent the crisis from deteriorating.

Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to attend the rally at a Kuala Lumpur stadium on Sunday. Myanmar has warned Muslim-majority Malaysia not to interfere in its internal affairs.

In a strongly worded statement, Malaysia's Foreign Ministry said the high number of Rohingya refugees in the country and other neighboring nations has made the crisis "no longer an internal matter but an international matter."

"The fact that only one particular ethnicity is being driven out is by definition ethnic cleansing. This practice must stop, and must be stopped immediately in order to bring back security and stability to the Southeast Asian region," it said.

U Zaw Htay, the deputy director general of Myanmar president's office, was quoted by the Myanmar Times as saying that Malaysia should respect a non-interference policy observed by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He said the protest appeared to be a calculated political decision to win the support of Muslim Malays in Malaysia.

Malaysia's Foreign Ministry rebutted the claim, saying the crisis was not a religious issue but an immediate humanitarian concern. It said Malaysia has repeatedly offered its assistance to Myanmar to find a just and durable solution to the persecution of Rohingya.

Malaysia has summoned the Myanmar ambassador over the issue, and withdrew from two scheduled friendly football matches against Myanmar this month. Hundreds also protested outside the Myanmar Embassy last week to denounce the Rakhine "genocide."

Myanmar's Rakhine state, home to Rohingya Muslims in the predominantly Buddhist nation, was the scene of intense ethnic violence in 2012 that left hundreds dead and drove 140,000 people into camps for the internally displaced, most of them Rohingya. The latest outbreak was triggered by attacks on Myanmar border posts on Oct. 9 that killed nine police officers. The identity and motives of the attackers are unclear, but in response, the government began military sweeps, sparking a major confrontation in mid-November when villagers resisted troops. The government has cut off access to the area to aid agencies, diplomats and journalists.

Many of the estimated 1 million Rohingya, who face widespread discrimination and are excluded from Myanmar citizenship, have lived in Rakhine for generations but are treated as illegal settlers from Bangladesh.</s>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia’s government has defended plans for a protest to condemn what it called ethnic cleansing of Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority, saying it has an obligation to ensure that its neighbor takes steps to prevent the crisis from deteriorating.

Prime Minister Najib Razak is expected to attend the rally on Sunday but Myanmar has warned Muslim-majority Malaysia not to interfere in its internal affairs.

Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry says the high number of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia and neighboring countries “makes this matter no longer an internal matter but an international matter.” It says the fact that “only particular ethnicity is being drive out is by definition ethnic cleansing.”

It said in a strongly worded statement Saturday that the practice must stop immediately to bring back security and stability to the region.</s>It's a scene straight out of Myanmar's dark past: a military offensive waged beyond world view that forces ethnic minority villagers from the smoldering ruins of their homes.

The U.S. government, a key sponsor of Myanmar's democratic transition, says a security crackdown that has displaced tens of thousands Rohingya Muslims and left an unknown number dead risks radicalizing a downtrodden people and stoking religious tensions in Southeast Asia.

The military moved in after armed attacks by unknown assailants on police posts along the border with Bangladesh in October. The attacks in Rakhine State were a possible sign that a small number of Rohingya were starting to fight back against persecution by majority Buddhists who view them as illegal immigrants although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, is critical of the military's heavy-handed approach and says the escalation of violence risks inciting jihadist extremism in the country also known as Burma. He is also calling on neighboring countries, such as Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, to resist the urge to stage protests that could further stir religious passions.

Assistant Secretary of State Russel told The Associated Press that, "if mishandled, Rakhine State could be infected and infested by jihadism which already plagues neighboring Bangladesh and other countries."

The plight of the Rohingya, once characterized by the U.N. as the world's most friendless people, has attracted the attention of Muslim extremists since a spike in intercommunal violence in Rakhine in 2012 that left hundreds dead and forced more than 100,000 into squalid camps.

The Somali-born student who launched a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University this week reportedly protested on his Facebook page about the killing of minority Muslims in Myanmar. And last weekend, Indonesian authorities arrested two militants who were allegedly planning to attack the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta.

It has also raised hackles in the political mainstream. Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, facing domestic pressure over an investment fund scandal, is reportedly planning to attend a protest in his religiously moderate country this weekend condemning the military operation in Myanmar.

Daniel Sullivan at the advocacy group Refugees International said increasing numbers of Rohingya are fleeing across the land border to Bangladesh, and the spike in violence could set off another exodus by sea.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled by rickety boats in recent years to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but those routes have been blocked since a crisis in 2015 when thousands were stranded at sea.

The U.S. and other nations have called for an independent investigation into the latest violence in Rakhine. Estimates of the death toll range between dozens and several hundred. Human Rights Watch said Nov. 21 that satellite imagery showed at least 1,250 buildings have been destroyed.

With journalists barred from the affected area, it's been near-impossible to substantiate reports of rapes and killings by Myanmar soldiers — the kind of conduct that has long blighted the military's reputation in ethnic conflicts.

Adama Dieng, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said this week that if reports of excessive use of force in Rakhine were true, "the lives of thousands of people are at risk."

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was appointed by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in August to find ways to help resolve the communal tensions. On a fact-finding visit Friday, he said that security operations must not impede humanitarian access.

That's been a repeated demand from the international community, including the United States, but it's made little impact.

The U.N. World Food Program said Friday that since Oct. 9 it has been able to deliver food or cash to only 20,000 of the 152,000 people who usually receive assistance, and to about 7,000 newly-displaced people.

The Obama administration has diminished leverage. It was instrumental in ending the former pariah state's diplomatic isolation as it shifted from five decades of military rule but the last U.S. sanctions were lifted in October.

The military's crackdown in Rakhine has also exposed the limits of Suu Kyi's power. The Nobel laureate's party won elections a year ago, but the military still controls key levers of government power, including access to sensitive border regions.

Human rights activists who once lionized Suu Kyi now criticize her for failing to defend the stateless Rohingya, but Russel defended her.

"We all should have confidence in her judgment and not fall prey to the idea that she does not get it and she does not care. She does get it, and she does care," he said.</s>The military moved in after armed attacks by unknown assailants on police posts along the border with Bangladesh in October. The attacks in Rakhine State were a possible sign that a small number of Rohingya were starting to fight back against persecution by majority Buddhists who view them as illegal immigrants although many have lived in Myanmar for generations.

The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, Daniel Russel, is critical of the military's heavy-handed approach and says the escalation of violence risks inciting jihadist extremism in the country also known as Burma. He is also calling on countries, such as Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, to resist the urge to stage protests that could further stir religious passions.

Assistant Secretary of State Russel told The Associated Press that, "if mishandled, Rakhine State could be infected and infested by jihadism which already plagues Bangladesh and other countries."

The plight of the Rohingya, once characterized by the U.N. as the world's most friendless people, has attracted the attention of Muslim extremists since a spike in intercommunal violence in Rakhine in 2012 that left hundreds dead and forced more than 100,000 into squalid camps.

The Somali-born student who launched a car-and-knife attack at Ohio State University this week reportedly protested on his Facebook page about the killing of minority Muslims in Myanmar. And last weekend, Indonesian authorities arrested two militants who were allegedly planning to attack the Myanmar Embassy in Jakarta.

It has also raised hackles in the political mainstream. Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak, facing domestic pressure over an investment fund scandal, is reportedly planning to attend a protest in his religiously moderate country this weekend condemning the military operation in Myanmar.

Daniel Sullivan at the advocacy group Refugees International said increasing numbers of Rohingya are fleeing across the land border to Bangladesh, and the spike in violence could set off another exodus by sea.

Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled by rickety boats in recent years to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, but those routes have been blocked since a crisis in 2015 when thousands were stranded at sea.

The U.S. and other nations have called for an independent investigation into the latest violence in Rakhine. Estimates of the death toll range between dozens and several hundred. Human Rights Watch said Nov. 21 that satellite imagery showed at least 1,250 buildings have been destroyed.

With journalists barred from the affected area, it's been near-impossible to substantiate reports of rapes and killings by Myanmar soldiers — the kind of conduct that has long blighted the military's reputation in ethnic conflicts.

Adama Dieng, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said this week that if reports of excessive use of force in Rakhine were true, "the lives of thousands of people are at risk."

Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was appointed by Myanmar's civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in August to find ways to help resolve the communal tensions. On a fact-finding visit Friday, he said that security operations must not impede humanitarian access.

The U.N. World Food Program said Friday that since Oct. 9 it has been able to deliver food or cash to only 20,000 of the 152,000 people who usually receive assistance, and to about 7,000 newly-displaced people.

The Obama administration has diminished leverage. It was instrumental in ending the former pariah state's diplomatic isolation as it shifted from five decades of military rule but the last U.S. sanctions were lifted in October.

"We all should have confidence in her judgment and not fall prey to the idea that she does not get it and she does not care. She does get it, and she does care," he said.</s>BANGKOK — Former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has begun a fact-finding visit to Myanmar's troubled Rakhine state, where the army has been accused of large-scale violence against members of the Muslim Rohingya ethnic minority, resulting in destruction of villages, civilian casualties and an exodus of refugees to Bangladesh.

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi asked Annan to help find ways to resolve long-standing ethnic and religious tensions between the Rohingya and the country's Buddhist majority. The area was the scene of intense intercommunal violence in 2012 that left hundreds dead and drove 140,000 people into camps for the internally displaced.

Suu Kyi on Friday told Singapore's Channel NewsAsia network that Rakhine's problems were exaggerated and the focus should be on resolving them.</s>(CNN) Amnesty describes it as " collective punishment ." A senior UN official suggested the goal appears to be "ethnic cleansing." Regardless of how it is described, it is clear the violence unleashed by Myanmar against its minority Rohingya Muslim population has been devastating.

John McKissick, with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said security forces in Myanmar were "killing men, shooting them, slaughtering children, raping women, burning and looting houses, forcing people to cross the river into Bangladesh." He accused the Myanmar military and border guard police of engaging in collective punishment of the Rohingya minority, arguing that they are using the killings of nine border guards in October as an excuse for the current crackdown.

Myanmar's presidential spokesman reportedly responded by denying reports of the atrocities, and advising McKissick to "maintain his professionalism and his ethics as a United Nations officer because his comments are just allegations."

Yet Myanmar's persecution of the Rohingya population is nothing new. The Rohingya minority has been discriminated against for decades, although the violence has steadily been getting worse since 2012. An estimated 100,000 live in internment camps inside Myanmar, without basic rights to citizenship, worship, marry or even an education. Tens of thousands of Rohingya, meanwhile, have risked their lives by escaping on smugglers' boats to nearby countries, while others have fled across the border to Bangladesh.

Indeed, it is perhaps neighboring Bangladesh that is most familiar with the crisis that has been unfolding in Myanmar. Rohingya refugees and asylum seekers from Myanmar have been arriving into Bangladesh since the 1970s, and despite Bangladesh not officially acknowledging the Rohingya as refugees, about 30,000 registered Rohingya live in two refugee camps near the town of Cox's Bazar

When I was growing up in Bangladesh, Aung San Suu Kyi amazed me. As a young girl, I simply could not wrap my head around the kind of threat this tiny woman could possibly pose to Myanmar's military junta, with her iconic bright and colorful flowers tucked behind her ear. I was too young to comprehend how Suu Kyi personified the heart and the spirit of her country's fight for democracy not just in Myanmar, but around the world.

Suu Kyi's status as an international human rights idol was further cemented when she was placed under house arrest. She would ultimately spend three periods under house arrest, from 1989 until her final release in 2010. No one seemed better to embody the fight for a people to choose their own government the way Suu Kyi did.

Perhaps the image of "The Lady," as she is known, was always overly romanticized. Still, despite Myanmar's historic election in 2015 , which made her the head of Myanmar's new government, Suu Kyi has made it clear she has no intention of ending, or even interfering, with her state's sponsored killing of the Rohingya. And the woman who once embodied the very essence of the struggle for democracy has been virtually mute on the issue of the Rohingya, aside from asking the United States not to use the term Rohingya, which is how the group describes itself.

But perhaps what is more baffling than Suu Kyi's silence is our denial of the kind of leader this laureate turned out to be. Every time the issue of Rohingya persecution comes up, it is met with inaction from Suu Kyi. Such silence simply legitimizes the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya.

It is time to admit that our idolization of Suu Kyi was just that, idolizing. The truth is that she is not going to glide in and lead the international community to the negotiating table to come up with some solution to save the Rohingya. We should stop expecting it, no matter how deeply we might harbor this hope.

That raises the question of what the world should be doing now. And the answer should be clear -- it is time to look past Suu Kyi and intervene on behalf of the Rohingyas. To begin with, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, can put pressure on Myanmar by reviewing its membership, as suggested this week by Malaysia's minister for youth and sports, Khairy Jamaluddin Abu Bakar, who reportedly stated that ASEAN's principle of noninterference is void when there is "large-scale ethnic cleansing in an ASEAN member state."

Ultimately, unless the international community takes action, we will be no less guilty than Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Government of Malaysia claims that violence against Myanmar's Muslim Rohingya minority is "ethnic cleansing" ahead of a march in Kuala Lumpur led by Prime Minister Najib Razak.