Take Away Aung San Suu Kyi's Nobel Peace Prize - She No Longer Deserves It
16 September 2017George Monbiot
Few of us expect much from political leaders: to do otherwise is to invite
despair. But to Aung San Suu Kyi we entrusted our hopes. To mention her name
was to invoke patience and resilience in the face of suffering, courage and
determination in the unyielding struggle for freedom. She was an inspiration
to us all.
She has denied the very identity of the people being attacked, asking the US
ambassador not to use the term Rohingya
Friends of mine devoted their working lives to the campaign for her release
from the many years of detention imposed by the military dictatorship of
Myanmar, and for the restoration of democracy. We celebrated when she was
awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1991; when she was finally released from
house arrest in 2010; and when she won the general election in 2015.
None of this is forgotten. Nor are the many cruelties she suffered, including
isolation, physical attacks and the junta's curtailment of her family life.
But it is hard to think of any recent political leader by whom such high hopes
have been so cruelly betrayed.
By any standards, the treatment of the Rohingya people, a Muslim minority in
Myanmar, is repugnant. By the standards Aung San Suu Kyi came to symbolise, it
is grotesque. They have been described by the UN as "the world's most
persecuted minority", a status that has not changed since she took office.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide describes five
acts, any one of which, when "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group", amounts to genocide.
With the obvious and often explicit purpose of destroying this group, four of
them have been practised more or less continuously by Myanmar's armed forces
since Aung San Suu Kyi became de facto political leader.
I recognise that the armed forces retain great power in Myanmar, and that Aung
San Suu Kyi does not exercise effective control over them. I recognise that
the scope of her actions is limited. But, as well as a number of practical and
legal measures that she could use directly to restrain these atrocities, she
possesses one power in abundance: the power to speak out. Rather than
deploying it, her response amounts to a mixture of silence, the denial of
well-documented evidence, and the obstruction of humanitarian aid.
I doubt she has read the UN human rights report on the treatment of the
Rohingyas, released in February. The crimes it revealed were horrific.
It documents the mass rape of women and girls, some of whom died as a result
of the sexual injuries they suffered. It shows how children and adults had
their throats slit in front of their families.
It reports the summary executions of teachers, elders and community leaders;
helicopter gunships randomly spraying villages with gunfire; people shut in
their homes and burnt alive; a woman in labour beaten by soldiers, her baby
stamped to death as it was born.
It details the deliberate destruction of crops and the burning of villages to
drive entire populations out of their homes; people trying to flee gunned down
in their boats.
And this is just one report. Amnesty International published a similar dossier
last year. There is a mountain of evidence suggesting that these actions are
an attempt to eliminate this ethnic group from Myanmar.
Hard as it is to imagine, this campaign of terror has escalated in recent
days. Refugees arriving in Bangladesh report widespread massacres.
Malnutrition ravages the Rohingya, afflicting 80,000 children.
In response Aung San Suu Kyi has blamed these atrocities, in a chillingly
remote interview, on insurgents, and expressed astonishment that anyone would
wish to fight the army when the government has done so much for them. Perhaps
this astonishment comes easily to someone who has never visited northern
Rakhine state, where most of this is happening.
It is true that some Rohingya people have taken up arms, and that the latest
massacres were triggered by the killing of 12 members of the security forces
last month, attributed to a group that calls itself the Arakan Rohingya
Salvation Army. But the military response has been to attack entire
populations, regardless of any possible involvement in the insurgency, and to
spread such terror that 120,000 people have been forced to flee in the past
fortnight.
In her Nobel lecture, Aung San Suu Kyi remarked: "Wherever suffering is
ignored, there will be the seeds of conflict, for suffering degrades and
embitters and enrages." The rage of those Rohingya people who have taken up
arms has been used as an excuse to accelerate an existing programme of ethnic
cleansing.
She has not only denied the atrocities, attempting to shield the armed forces
from criticism; she has also denied the very identity of the people being
attacked, asking the US ambassador not to use the term Rohingya. This is in
line with the government's policy of disavowing their existence as an ethnic
group, and classifying them – though they have lived in Myanmar for centuries
– as interlopers. She has upheld the 1982 Citizenship Law, which denies these
people their rights.
When a Rohingya woman provided detailed allegations about her gang rape and
associated injuries by Myanmar soldiers, Aung San Suu Kyi's office posted a
banner on its Facebook page reading "Fake Rape". Given her reputation for
micromanagement, it seems unlikely that such action would have been taken
without her approval.
Not only has she snubbed and obstructed UN officials who have sought to
investigate the treatment of the Rohingya, but her government has prevented
aid agencies from distributing food, water and medicines to people displaced
or isolated by the violence. Her office has accused aid workers of helping
"terrorists", putting them at risk of attack, further impeding their attempts
to help people who face starvation.
So far Aung San Suu Kyi has been insulated by the apologetics of those who
refuse to believe she could so radically abandon the principles to which she
once appealed. A list of excuses is proffered: that she didn't want to
jeopardise her prospects of election; that she doesn't want to offer the armed
forces a pretext to tighten their grip on power; that she has to keep China
happy.
None of them stand up. As a great democracy campaigner once remarked: "It is
not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who
wield it." Who was this person? Aung San Suu Kyi. But now, whether out of
prejudice or out of fear, she denies to others the freedoms she rightly
claimed for herself. Her regime excludes – and in some cases seeks to silence
– the very activists who helped to ensure her own rights were recognised.
This week, to my own astonishment, I found myself signing a petition for the
revocation of her Nobel peace prize. I believe the Nobel committee should
retain responsibility for the prizes it awards, and withdraw them if its
laureates later violate the principles for which they were recognised. There
are two cases in which this appears to be appropriate. One is Barack Obama,
who, bafflingly, was given the prize before he was tested in office. His
programme of drone strikes, which slaughtered large numbers of civilians,
should disqualify him from this honour. The other is Aung San Suu Kyi.
Please sign this petition. Why? Because we now contemplate an extraordinary
situation: a Nobel peace laureate complicit in crimes against humanity.
• George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist
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