Pope To Meet With Aung San Suu Kyi
ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: You're watching CNN NEWSROOM live from Los Angeles.</s>JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead this hour, Pope Francis in Myanmar amid the ongoing military crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. And on this trip, words matter -- one word in particular.</s>SESAY: Plus, U.S. President Donald Trump goes off script with another racially charged insult. This time, disparaging native Americans during an event that was supposed to honor them.</s>VAUSE: And the royal engagement of Prince Harry and Megan Markel as Britain prepares for a spring wedding. Who will make the wedding's guest list and which world leader may be left at home in Florida with Melania?</s>SESAY: Hello, and thank you for joining us. I'm Isha Sesay.</s>VAUSE: I'm John Vause, you're watching NEWSROOM L.A. Pope Francis will need all his diplomatic skills to navigate the first papal visit to Myanmar. Later this hour, he travels to the capitol for a meeting with Leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Francis is expected to push for an end to a violent crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, which has forced more than 600,000 to flee the country.</s>SESAY: But he's been warned not to use the word Rohingya. The pope's advisors are afraid it might aggravate an already tensed situation. CNN's Ivan Watson joins us now from Hong Kong. So, Ivan, as we look ahead to the pope arriving in the capital where he'll meet with Aung San Suu Kyi and the president, I guess the question is: how forcefully will he push the issue of the plight of the Rohingya? What are the indications?</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do know that he made a change in his schedule, and that is to have sat down with the commander of the armed forces shortly after arriving in Yangon to scenes of cheering crowds. Sitting down with the commander of the armed of forces, that was a meeting that was supposed to take place several days later in the pope's itinerary. So, not entirely clear what kind of signal that sends. The Vatican put out a very short description of that short meeting with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing saying that "they talked about the great responsibility that the authorities have in this period of transition. And there, the pope is echoing a line that's been promoted by the U.S. government as well, that Myanmar is supposed to be transitioning from a half-century of military rule with the elections of two years ago that brought this opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her party to power. And yet, the pope had to sit down with the commander of the armed forces because the military is still seen to be the most potent political force in the country, according to a Constitution drafted by the military. The armed forces have the final say about defense manners, foreign affairs, and also control a quarter of the seats in the parliament. The general who sat down with Pope Francis, he also put out a statement saying that "the senior general said he welcomes the pope's Myanmar's visit. There is no religious discrimination in Myanmar as the country ensures religious freedom." That is another theme that Pope Francis has been repeating. And he has spoken out very forcefully in the past, criticizing the authorities in Myanmar about what he perceives to be the mistreatment of the Rohingya Muslims in the southwest of that country, Isha.</s>SESAY: I mean, everyone is looking the see what he says when he makes the speech with Aung San Suu Kyi some hours from now in the capital, whether indeed he goes as far as to use the word Rohingya. Talk to me about the tightrope the pope is walking and the reputational risk to the pope, should he not use that word, which should -- you know, is seen as standing in solidarity with the Rohingya.</s>WATSON: Yes. The tightrope is -- and it comes down to the heart of the crisis in Rakhine State in Myanmar where the Rohingya Muslims have fled by numbers of more than 600,000 refugees streaming across the border to neighboring Bangladesh since August. And the issue is that the authorities in Myanmar refuse to even accept the term Rohingya, which that community uses to identify themselves. Instead, what the authorities have done traditionally is to claim that these people are essentially illegal immigrants from Bangladesh -- they call them Bengalis -- and they do not have any legitimate right to citizenship in Myanmar. The pope has instead argued that these people are his brothers and sisters, that they have been persecuted simply for their faith, for believing in Islam. He's actually said that they're being tortured and killed. So, the question is, will he, on stage, alongside the de facto leader of government, Aung San Suu Kyi, will he use the word Rohingya, will he highlight the persecution of this community -- hundreds of thousands of whom are stateless and have historically been denied free access to education, healthcare, or even the right to travel freely around Myanmar. Isha.</s>SESAY: We'll be watching very closely. Ivan Watson there joining us from Hong Kong. Thank you, Ivan. For more, we're joined by the CNN Senior Vatican Analyst, John Allen. John, always good to have you with us. On Monday, soon after landing in Myanmar, the pope met with the General Min Aung Hlaing, the nation's military chief. And according to a statement posted Facebook by the general's office, the army chief told the pope that Myanmar has no religious discrimination at all and that the military performs for the peace and stability of the country. John, you will know that in the past, the pope has spoken out quite clearly, and, in fact, used the words, you know, speaking against the persecution of our Rohingya brothers and sisters. So, I guess, my question now is -- now that he's there in the country: how direct will he be in addressing what the U.N. and the U.S. have called the ethnic cleansing of this group?</s>JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST (via Skype): Hi, Isha, and first of all, thank you for pronouncing the general's name for me, because that is a minefield that I don't want to walk into. Listen, we know what the general says he told the pope; what we don't know is what the pope told the general. I think it was important to Pope Francis to have this meeting, but let's remember that this meeting with the military leadership with Myanmar was not actually on the itinerary when the Vatican released it. We only heard last week that it was going to happen, and we thought it was going to be at the end of the trip. It was only very last minute that we learned it was actually going to be today. And I think, you know, when popes travel, particularly when they go to places, where they have a somewhat tough message to deliver, they often like to do that behind the scenes. They will give a regime the photo op that it wants in public, they will allow to it spin the encounter however they like. But behind closed doors, quite often, popes can be very direct.</s>SESAY: Yes. John, amongst those meetings, on Tuesday, will be a meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, the defacto Leader of Myanmar. But there's also the eyes of the world looking at what he says in public, specifically whether he will use the word "Rohingya." A word that Aung San Suu Kyi herself has not used and a word that is incredibly loaded, and in that part of the world for some reason, controversial.</s>ALLEN: Yes, that's right. The -- certainly, the military, and often in tandem with the hardline Buddhist Nationalists in Myanmar, go nuts when any public figure uses the word Rohingya. Because from their point of view, it implies a kind of, Burmese legitimacy on this group of people that they would claim they don't deserve. They see them as, in their local's claim, from Bengal, and they're from the region of India, and they don't think they belong in Myanmar at all. And so, it is always a kind of dicey proposition when a public figure goes into Myanmar, whether they will or will not use the "R" word that is the "Rohingya" word. Certainly, Vatican spokespersons in the run- up to this trip were urging caution. They have said that the pope has used that term a number of times; he's already on record. It is not necessary for him to say it again. I think if there is one thing we had learned about this pope is that if he feels important is at stake, he is not going to be a prisoner of diplomatic protocol.</s>SESAY: Last week, I'm sure you saw this Reverend Thomas J. Reese, the Commission of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, wrote this, in reference to the pope: "He risks either compromising his moral authority of putting in danger the Christians of that country. I have great admiration for the pope and his abilities, but someone should have talked him out of making this trip." Where do you stand on that issue, you know? The last word, was it the right move for the pope to make this trip in your view?</s>ALLEN: Well, it's above my pay grade, to tell you who the right person --</s>SESAY: Well, he was going to go regardless of what you though.</s>ALLEN: You know, Tom Reese is a great friend of mine, and I have great admiration for him. But I will tell you this that once Francis has made up his mind to go someplace, no power, I mean this literally, no power on heaven or Earth is going to stop him from getting there. I remember, Isha when he went to the Central African Republic which at the time was an active war zone. Everyone counseled him against doing it, and it's a sort of a thumb in the nose to all of that. When got on the plane to depart, he went up to the cockpit and told the pilots, listen, if you guys are too scared to land, just give me a parachute, because one way or the other, I'm getting there. So, I think Pope Francis made a calculation early on in the game that he was making this trip. And, of course, that determination was borne of his concern for the Rohingya. And I don't think anyone was going on dissuade him from doing it. So, while I think Tom's analysis of all of this is quite interesting, I am quite sure it fell on deaf ears as far as Pope Francis is concerned.</s>SESAY: Well, he certainly did. He's in Myanmar as we speak. So, we shall see the fruits of his efforts. John Allen, always a pleasure. Thank you so much.</s>ALLEN: Thanks, Isha.</s>VAUSE: Now to Bali where clouds of volcanic smoke and ash continue to belch from Mt. Agung. The eruptions began Saturday, sending ash more than 9,000 meters into the sky and there could be more to come. Officials have issued a level four alert -- the highest possible. The main airport on the island has been closed until at least Wednesday, leaving more than 50,000 tourists stranded. Evacuations around the volcano have been ordered as a safety precaution forcing 30,000 residents from their homes. OK. Meteorologist, Pedram Javaheri, joins us now for more on the volcano. What we can expect, and how bad it's going to get.</s>PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, it could get very bad, and that's why folks are taking this very seriously when it comes to a level four alert -- that doesn't happen every day. And you take a look, this is the country, the most prepared country, at least the most used to such events, and you're talking about 127 active volcanoes. No other country that comes close to that many active volcanoes -- Japan coming in second place, and then you see where the U.S. is. And, of course, we're talking about an archipelago of 13,000 islands that makes up this particular nation. And then, you go for a closer perspective, anywhere you go within close proximity of this volcano now, the threat is extremely high for an eruption that officials are is imminent. And the concern is, is this going to be an eruption that is going to be such that cost significant damage and loss of life? Or is it going to be more of a passive eruption? And that's the certainty associated with this particular volcano. And, of course, 1963 -- the last time we have an eruption similar to this. And the particular ash with this volcano in the last couple days, 9,000 meters. I believe John was just talking about that. But that's about half the rate that we saw with the 1963 eruptions, we're going to put it in perspective. But we know magma has worked its way well to the surface, enough towards the very top crater there. That means the energy is beginning to really kind of trapped in there. Of course, we've had a couple of eruptions. We see some of that energy dispersed and now beyond this. The concern becomes the weather element as you mix all of this in because you take a look that that is a tropical system that's one of potentially two tropical systems just working their way south of this region. Now, the main issue with this is not that it is a dangerous tropical system and the winds that come with it, it's actually the rainfall as it relates to the ash, the lahar, the debris flow associated with this. Because think of the lahar with volcanoes when they erupt, that's essentially a cement on the move, and it could destroy just about anything in its path; it becomes -- stop there, and solidifies, that, of course, is destructive in its own self. But when you add liquid to this, it really mixes things up here to make it a dangerous go. And, of course, the aviation</s>SESAY: Yes. Worrying intense times. We'll follow it closely. Pedram, thank you.</s>VAUSE: Thanks, Pedram.</s>SESAY: Well, Egypt is still trying to heal tonight after Friday's massacre at a mosque in the Sinai. Next, on NEWSROOM L.A. Our</s>VAUSE: Also ahead, while honoring native American war heroes, the U.S. President goes off script and uses a racial slur to insult a political opponent, details next.