Editorial Desk :
An online campaign calling for the confiscation of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 was started late last year. The petition demands the Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to “confiscate or take back” the prize and argues that it should be awarded to “only those who are serious in keeping the world peace…”
Is such a petition uncalled for or has its own merit of serious consideration? This campaign has its root in the 2012 conflict between the Rakhines and Rohingyas, which resulted in the death of over hundreds of people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, mostly the stateless Rohingyas, from their home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Thousands of people, many of whom are from the Muslim-majority Indonesia, have joined the call for the revocation of the peace prize awarded to Myanmar’s state counsellor and its de-facto leader Suu Kyi. She also faces mounting criticism for her government’s handling of massacre in the Rakhine State from October last year. The government claimed that five soldiers and at least 33 insurgents were killed in clashes that time with an Islamic group it believes has around 400 members, mostly drawn from the Rohingya community.
The main criticism of Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) government is over serious human rights violations, such as killings, looting and sexual assaults committed by the government soldiers against civilians. Suu Kyi and her NLD government are also accused of not doing enough to ensure the entry of international aid workers and other humanitarian assistance groups to the Muslim areas.
The government has so far backed the military’s position that the army is conducting carefully targeted operations against Islamist militants it blames for the October 2016 attacks. The military has also claimed that access to the area was banned or restricted for security reason. Suu Kyi has also come under criticism from some people inside the country as well as the international community arguing that she has given more importance to diplomacy works and international travel than solving Myanmar’s pressing domestic problems.
The question is does Suu Kyi’s actions or reticence become serious enough to the point of stripping the Nobel Peace Prize she received more than two decades ago. She was awarded the much-coveted prize in absentia “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.”
In 1991, Suu Kyi was under house arrest and her political future career was uncertain. She was largely seen as a democratic icon and human rights advocate, rather than a politician. But since then, a lot of political changes have happened and so does the political reality of Aung San Suu Kyi herself.
Suu Kyi is now a politician who wants to lead the country. As the situation demands, Suu Kyi has transformed herself from being an activist to an astute politician. Second, Suu Kyi ethnically belongs to the Bama or Burman or Myanma group, which forms almost two-thirds of the country’s population. Since she is the leader of the party dominated by the Bama group, it is in her political interest to win the support of the Bama voters.
Such political calculation entails the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient to ignore or remain reticent on some of the issues she previously stood for. It is an abnegation of the award which she won for her support of human rights–since the Rakhines are also human beings. She has to be pragmatic but not at a cost of the blatant disregard for human rights seen in Myanmar for the rights of the Muslim minority Rohingya. It is time that she either speaks out with courage or have her award stripped as she denigrates the ideals the award was presented to her for.
An online campaign calling for the confiscation of the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 was started late last year. The petition demands the Chair of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee to “confiscate or take back” the prize and argues that it should be awarded to “only those who are serious in keeping the world peace…”
Is such a petition uncalled for or has its own merit of serious consideration? This campaign has its root in the 2012 conflict between the Rakhines and Rohingyas, which resulted in the death of over hundreds of people and the displacement of hundreds of thousands, mostly the stateless Rohingyas, from their home in Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Thousands of people, many of whom are from the Muslim-majority Indonesia, have joined the call for the revocation of the peace prize awarded to Myanmar’s state counsellor and its de-facto leader Suu Kyi. She also faces mounting criticism for her government’s handling of massacre in the Rakhine State from October last year. The government claimed that five soldiers and at least 33 insurgents were killed in clashes that time with an Islamic group it believes has around 400 members, mostly drawn from the Rohingya community.
The main criticism of Suu Kyi-led National League for Democracy (NLD) government is over serious human rights violations, such as killings, looting and sexual assaults committed by the government soldiers against civilians. Suu Kyi and her NLD government are also accused of not doing enough to ensure the entry of international aid workers and other humanitarian assistance groups to the Muslim areas.
The government has so far backed the military’s position that the army is conducting carefully targeted operations against Islamist militants it blames for the October 2016 attacks. The military has also claimed that access to the area was banned or restricted for security reason. Suu Kyi has also come under criticism from some people inside the country as well as the international community arguing that she has given more importance to diplomacy works and international travel than solving Myanmar’s pressing domestic problems.
The question is does Suu Kyi’s actions or reticence become serious enough to the point of stripping the Nobel Peace Prize she received more than two decades ago. She was awarded the much-coveted prize in absentia “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.”
In 1991, Suu Kyi was under house arrest and her political future career was uncertain. She was largely seen as a democratic icon and human rights advocate, rather than a politician. But since then, a lot of political changes have happened and so does the political reality of Aung San Suu Kyi herself.
Suu Kyi is now a politician who wants to lead the country. As the situation demands, Suu Kyi has transformed herself from being an activist to an astute politician. Second, Suu Kyi ethnically belongs to the Bama or Burman or Myanma group, which forms almost two-thirds of the country’s population. Since she is the leader of the party dominated by the Bama group, it is in her political interest to win the support of the Bama voters.
Such political calculation entails the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize recipient to ignore or remain reticent on some of the issues she previously stood for. It is an abnegation of the award which she won for her support of human rights–since the Rakhines are also human beings. She has to be pragmatic but not at a cost of the blatant disregard for human rights seen in Myanmar for the rights of the Muslim minority Rohingya. It is time that she either speaks out with courage or have her award stripped as she denigrates the ideals the award was presented to her for.
