A forfeited prize to Aung San Suu Kyi for her silence on the Rohingya

AFP

AFP

Thursday, march 8, 2018 04:02

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Thursday, march 8, 2018 04:02

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WASHINGTON | The Holocaust Museum in Washington has removed Wednesday to the leader of burma Aung San Suu Kyi a prize to be awarded for her struggle against dictatorship and in favour of freedom, by reason of its inaction in the crisis of the Rohingya.

Nearly 700,000 muslim rohingyas living in western Burma have fled to Bangladesh neighbour since the end of August 2017 to flee an operation of the army, the skilled campaign of “ethnic cleansing” by the united Nations.

“We had hoped that you – as a person praised for your commitment in favour of human dignity and universal human rights – to do something to condemn and stop the brutal military campaign, and to express your solidarity with the rohingya population,” said the Museum in a press release.

But “the national League for democracy, under your leadership, has refused to cooperate with the united Nations investigators (and) spread a rhetoric of hatred against the rohingya communities,” added the Museum in allusion to the political party of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. It also calls upon the leader to use his “moral authority to address this situation”.

Confined to the dissent for nearly thirty years, including 15 in house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the first prize in the “Elie Wiesel” award in 2012 by the Museum of the Holocaust, for his “courageous action, and his great personal sacrifice” against the burmese junta and its struggle for “freedom and the dignity of the burmese people”.

But the Nobel peace prize in 1991, at the head of the civil government since 2016, has been criticized for its lack of compassion for the Rohingya and for his silence on the role of the army, with which it must cope on the political level.

The museum “has been misled by people who do not see reality as it is,” responded the burmese government in a press release Thursday.

Influenced by a strong nationalism, a buddhist, a majority of Burmese consider the Rohingya as foreigners and see them as a threat to the predominantly buddhist country.