(Staff articles from The GUARDIAN & BBC on 28 September 2018.)
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| Bangladesh's Sheikh Hasina Vs Burma's ASSK. |
Canada’s PM Trudeau told reporters this week that he was open to looking at stripping Aung San Suu Kyi of the citizenship honour. Canadian politicians have voted unanimously to strip Myanmar’s civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi of her honorary citizenship in response to crimes committed against the Rohingya minority.
The move by the House of Commons lower chamber has no effect because honorary citizenship is conferred by a joint resolution of both the House and the upper Senate chamber and officials say it must be removed the same way. Suu Kyi received hers in 2007.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters a day ago that he was open to looking at stripping Suu Kyi of the honour, but said doing so would not end the crisis in Myanmar, where more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled a government crackdown. The next steps to carry out the motion are not immediately clear, Liberal MP Andrew Leslie told reporters.
Amid the genocide allegations, the UN Human rights council also voted to set up a panel to prepare criminal indictments over atrocities committed in Myanmar. The top UN rights body voted to “establish an ongoing independent mechanism to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar since 2011”.
Thirty-five of the council’s 47 members voted in favour of the resolution and only three - China, the Philippines and Burundi - voted against. The remainder either abstained or refrained from casting a vote.
The council’s decision, which was immediately hailed by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and other rights groups, will go to the UN General Assembly in New York for final approval. The text was presented after a damning report was released to the council earlier this month, outlining in searing detail atrocities against the Rohingya, who fled a violent military campaign that started in August last year.
An Iranian-Canadian Mulsim Senator Ratna Omidvar
with the total support of all Muslim and leftist politicians, introduced the
motion in the Canadian chamber, claiming that: "Stripping her of her
honorary citizenship may not make a tangible difference to her, but it sends an
important symbolic message." She added: “She has been complicit in
stripping the citizenship and the security of thousands of Rohingya, which has
led to their flight, their murder, their rapes and their current deplorable
situation.”
Myanmar’s powerful army chief Min Aung Hlaing this week insisted the United Nations had no right to interfere in his country’s sovereignty.
Aung San Suu Kyi will be stripped of Freedom of Oxford
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| ASSK's portrait was already removed by Oxford University. |
The de facto leader of Myanmar was granted the honour in 1997 for her "long struggle for democracy". But a motion, backed by Oxford City Council, said it was no longer appropriate for her to hold it.
More than half a million Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar to Bangladesh following recent violence. The trouble erupted on 25 August when Rohingya militants attacked security posts, triggering a military crackdown.
Ms Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest in Rangoon as a campaigner for democracy while Myanmar (formerly Burma) was ruled by a military dictatorship. She became a worldwide figurehead for freedom before leading her National League for Democracy party to victory in open elections in November 2015.
'No longer worthy'
But her failure to denounce the military or address allegations of ethnic cleansing has been criticised by world leaders and groups such as Amnesty International. Oxford City Council backed the motion at a meeting on Monday.
Bob Price, the authority's leader, said evidence coming out of the United Nations meant she was "no longer worthy" of the honour. It will be formally taken away at special meeting next month but the decision could still be reversed at that point if the situation in Myanmar changed, councillors stressed.
Other organisations are now reconsidering honours given to Ms Suu Kyi, BBC world affairs editor John Simpson said. "I think it is perfectly natural to look around for ways of saying we disapprove utterly of what you are doing," he told BBC Radio Oxford. Last week it emerged St Hugh's College, Oxford, had removed a portrait of Ms Suu Kyi from display.
(Blogger's notes: During her last visit to Burma then US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton quietly asked Aung San Suu Kyi if she wants to be either a politician ruling Burma or just a moral crusader for human rights and democracy. When ASSK frankly replied to Hilary that she really wanted to be a politician leading her people the advice from Mrs. Clinton was that she should be well prepared for the attacks coming from all sides including the people who admired her then.)
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