End of days for Suu Kyi’s iconography
Amnesty International's withdrawal of Aung San Suu Kyi's 'Ambassador of Conscience' prize underlines the fact she was never really a rights champion after all
Few if any Asian leaders have been showered with as many human rights honors and accolades as Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Similarly, never has the hallowed image of a rights and democracy icon so quickly crumbled to reveal as flinty and frivolous a leader in the face of mass crimes against humanity.
Western outrage over her disregard and denials for the violent expulsion of Rohingya Muslims, and silence over Myanmar military abuses against ethnic minorities in many other parts of the country, have been sustained at fever pitch for nearly two years.
But Amnesty International may have delivered the coup de grâce of Suu Kyi’s human rights credibility by withdrawing on Tuesday the title of “Ambassador of Conscience” they awarded to her in 2009 while she was in house arrest under repressive military rule.
Kumi Naidoo, Amnesty International’s secretary general, sent Suu Kyi a letter warning her the honor would be withdrawn, and saying he was “profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defense of human rights.”
Amnesty also redirected Suu Kyi’s platitudes against her, reminding the world that when she accepted the award in 2012 she exhorted the organization to “not take either your eyes or your mind off us and help us to be the country where hope and history merges.”
The stripping of Amnesty’s honor was a far cry from the time the global rights group celebrated Suu Kyi as the most famous “prisoner of conscience” in the world. Upon her release in late 2010, Suu Kyi maintained the façade of human rights champion, visiting Amnesty in New York where she expressed solidarity with the persecuted Russian punk rock group Pussy Riot.
http://www.atimes.com/article/end-of-days-for-suu-kyis-iconography/
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