Holocaust Museum rescinds Elie Wiesel Award to Nobel winner Suu Kyi
As you may have read from my article - What a Friday! - I missed coming to the Holocaust Center last Sunday as a result of not being able to fly back from my trip the past week because of the bad weather that affected much of the north-east USA. I am glad to learn that the Museum has done the most honorable thing by rescinding its award to the War Criminal Suu Kyi whose government is guilty of genocidal crimes against the Rohingyas of Burma. While such reprimanding acts may not sober her, it nonetheless sends a strong message that our world will not tolerate such crimes go unpunished.
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A 15-year-old Rohingya Muslim told UNICEF most of her family was killed and she was raped by members of the military in Burma before she fled to Bangladesh.
(UNICEF)
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The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum announced Wednesday that it is rescinding the Elie Wiesel Award — its highest honor — it gave in 2012 to Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese political leader and Nobel laureate, saying military crimes against the Muslim Rohingya minority “demand that you use your moral authority to address this situation.”
The announcement, posted on the museum’s website, comes as calls are becoming louder and louder for Suu Kyi, once a towering human rights hero, to speak out. She is seen as the power behind President Htin Kyaw, a close friend and ally. Prevented by Burmese law from running for political office, she holds the title of state counselor and foreign minister.
The museum posted its March 6 letter to Suu Kyi, sent via Aung Lynn, Burma’s ambassador to the United States. The Burmese Embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post.
“In recent years, the Museum has been closely monitoring the military’s campaign against the Rohingya and your response to it,” the letter reads. “… As the military’s attacks against the Rohingya unfolded in 2016 and 2017, we had hoped that you — as someone we and many others have celebrated for your commitment to human dignity and universal human rights — would have done something to condemn and stop the military’s brutal campaign and to express solidarity with the targeted Rohingya population.”
The letter continues, urging her to use her position to cooperate with international efforts “to establish the truth about the atrocities committed in Rakhine State and secure accountability for perpetrators” and to lead changes to Burmese law, which leaves most Rohingya stateless.
“You can expand access for both local and international aid workers to administer life-saving assistance,” the letter states. “Finally, we urge you to condemn the hateful, dehumanizing language directed toward the Rohingya.”
The letter was first reported by the New York Times.
Suu Kyi, who endured 15 years of house arrest for taking on the military dictatorship in Burma, was given the award in 2012 — a year after it was created to honor famed Holocaust survivor Wiesel, who was the first recipient.
The award is given annually to “internationally prominent individuals whose actions have advanced the Museum’s vision of a world where people confront hatred, prevent genocide, and promote human dignity,” the museum’s site says.
Why has Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and Burma's de facto civilian leader, been so unwilling to condemn the persecution of Rohingya Muslims in her country? (Joyce Lee, Ishaan Tharoor/The Washington Post)
Some 700,000 Rohingya have been driven across the border into Bangladesh, bringing with them scant possessions and countless tales of atrocities, including gang rapes, the murder of children and the destruction of entire villages, The Post reported recently. What makes the survivors’ accounts even more disturbing is the realization that many of the horrors they describe were coolly planned and premeditated, as documented in a recent report by Human Rights Watch.
The museum does on-the-ground research into alleged genocide around the world. In its statement Wednesday, officials noted the museum has been focused in recent years on the military’s campaign against the Rohingya, an ethnic group that is mostly Muslim. It held a public event — called “Our Walls Bear Witness” — in 2013, made numerous visits to Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Bangladesh to gather evidence and do interviews, and published in 2015 a report “which documented the early warning signs of genocide.”
Rohingya Muslims travel on a raft made with plastic containers from Burma into Bangladesh in November 2017. Waves of attacks against the ethnic group turned hundreds of thousands into refugees. (A.M. Ahad/AP)
Last fall, the museum released more findings “documenting crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and what we termed ‘mounting evidence of genocide’ committed by the Myanmar military against Rohingya civilians since October 2016. Regrettably over the last five years the situation has become progressively worse and today seems untenable for the Rohingya population,” the museum’s site says.
“Aung San Suu Kyi came to power as a voice of the oppressed, having spent years as a democracy champion, kept under house arrest by Burma’s repressive generals. But she has not acted with the same eloquence and alacrity to the deepening crisis in Rakhine state,” The Post editorial stated. “It is true that Aung San Suu Kyi lacks real power over the military, which retains a quarter of seats in parliament and runs other institutions. But that is no excuse for her failure to wield her substantial moral authority to attempt to halt the assaults and seek reconciliation.”
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