Nobel prize for Ang sang suki is meaningless.

[bdslph]

dont care about the nobel prize she can keep that i want the right of the Rohingas
all terrorist leader has this nobel prize and we dont ask them bak like obama
this crazy lady must be stopped

 

[Banglar Bir]

12:00 AM, September 12, 2017 / LAST MODIFIED: 03:58 PM, September 12, 2017
So low, so fast

Inam Ahmed and Shakhawat Liton

Seldom, if ever, in history has a world hero fallen so fast into disrepute. Never have so many people and organisations representing world conscience turned red in the face because of the behavior of a person whom they had once adored, endorsed and praised for championing the cause of human rights and dignity.

Her own persecution at the hands of the Myanmar junta had deeply worried the world for long. But today the same world is worried because of her joining hands with the persecutors of the Rohingya people.

Not long before in 2009 Amnesty International had awarded her its most prestigious honour -- the “ambassador of conscience” award.

Today Amnesty views “what is unfolding in front of our eyes can be described as ethnic cleansing, in legal terms these are crimes against humanity”. And Suu Kyi is not only a denier of the genocide that is being perpetrated in Myanmar but a vocal supporter of the marauding army.

Read More

Shared food, homes for some refugees

Textbook case of ethnic cleansing
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum set up by the US government had awarded Suu Kyi with its prestigious Elie Wiesel Award for her stance against hatred, genocide and abuse of human dignity. On September 8 this year, the museum observed "today, these ideals appear absent in the defence of Burma's Rohingya population. We now implore her to … uphold those very ideals and work to stop the long standing persecution and violence…”

When she was awarded the US Congressional Medal in 2012, influential Republican senator Johan McCain said Suu Kyi was his hero. On September 9 this year he co-introduced a bipartisan resolution in senate on the atrocity on the Rohingya and urged Suu Kyi to “live up to her inspiring words upon receiving the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize with respect to ethnic reconciliation in Burma and in particular to address the historic and brutal repression of the Rohingya in Rakhine state.”

South African anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu was so distraught by Suu Kyi's role in the Rohingya massacre that he wrote an open letter where he said “if the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep.”

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi has accused Suu Kyi of having “turned her back on democracy once she came to power” and said the Burmese leader has failed to live up to the prize's ideals.

The youngest Nobel winner, Malala Yousafzai, has condemned Suu Kyi's inaction and said, “Over the last several years, I have repeatedly condemned this tragic and shameful treatment. I am still waiting for my fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to do the same.”

A global campaign has begun urging the Nobel Committee to strip the Myanmar leader of her award and more than 400,000 have signed a petition calling for Suu Kyi to be stripped of her award.

Nevertheless, the committee has said it only awards people for the roles and does not revoke for their actions afterwards.

Despite everything, she remains unfeeling and untouched although the Holocaust Memorial Museum says it is now deeply concerned about the “ongoing mass atrocities, including the risk of genocide”.

Bangladesh had joined the global voice demanding her release and freedom during her imprisoned days, and rejoiced when she gained votes and acquired her place as leader though denied her rightful place as the head of the government. Today, like the rest of the world's democracy loving people, Bangladesh stands aghast at the role of a once "icon of democracy".
http://www.thedailystar.net/frontpa...tate-myanmar-situation-so-low-so-fast-1460833

 

[Nilgiri]

Seldom, if ever, in history has a world hero fallen so fast into disrepute.

What about sheikh mujib? Only took a cpl years in his case, because he put family over country.

 

[UKBengali]

What about sheikh mujib? Only took a cpl years in his case, because he put family over country.

Why dont you visit Myanmar and enter Rakhine?

Would love to see the Barmans label you as "Bengali" and then slaughter you.

 

[Banglar Bir]

Iran says Rohingya tragedy sounds alarm for death of Nobel Peace Prize
Source: Xinhua | 2017-09-12 18:01:10 | Editor: huaxia

Iran's top leader says Tuesday Myanmar Rohingya tragedy sounds alarm for death of Nobel Peace Prize. (Reuters Photo)

TEHRAN, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday that violence in Myanmar against the Rohingya Muslims have sounded alarms for the death of Nobel Peace Prize, Tehran Times daily reported.

Khamenei called Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a "cruel woman" since the crimes against Rohingya Muslims are taking place under her eyes.

Khamenei also called on Muslim nations to take practical steps to stop violence against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-09/12/c_136603866.htm

 

[Banglar Bir]

https://www.facebook.com/

 

[Banglar Bir]

https://www.facebook.com/

 

[Banglar Bir]

Rohingyas, Suu Kyi and Nobel prize
Dr Binoy Kampmark

Scratch the skin of a saint, claimed George Orwell, and you are bound to find a sinner with an extensive resume. Such resumes are evaluated in these modern times by accolades, awards, and summits. The Noble Peace Prize tends to be crowning affirmation that somewhere along the line, you sufficiently fouled up to merit it.

The calls, some even shrill, to have the Nobel Prize taken off Aung San Suu Kyi, are distressed lamentations of misplaced loyalties, even love. The de facto leader of Myanmar is showing what others have in the past: partiality, a harsh streak, and a cold blooded instinct. The saint, in other words, has been scratched, and the unquestioning followers are startled.

When asked to respond to the arrival in Bangladesh of almost 150,000 stateless Muslim Rohingyas since August, the result of violence in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine state, the leader sternly rebuked suggestions that there was a problem. After all, the initial violence had been perpetrated by assaults on an army base and police posts by Rohingya insurgents since October.
Suu Kyi’s ‘fake news’
The problem she sought to address was that others were faking the record to advance the interests of terrorists, supplying the world with “a huge iceberg of misinformation”. (How delightful is Trumpland, with its tentacles so global and extensive they have found themselves in the speeches and opinions of a secularly ordained saint.)

Faking the fleeing of tens of thousands of persecuted souls would surely be a challenge. The response from Suu Kyi is a salutary reminder that genocides, atrocities and historical cruelties can be often denied with untroubled ease. Her statement in response to the crisis was one of conscious omission: the Rohingyas barely warranted a mention, except as a security challenge.

The statement issued from her office on Facebook claimed that the government had “already started defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible.” The misinformation campaign, she insisted, was coming from such individuals as the Turkish deputy prime minister, who deleted images of killings on Twitter after discovering they were not, in fact, from Myanmar.

The approach to misinformation taken by the government has been one of silence and containment. National security advisor Thaung Tun has made it clear that China and Russia will be wooed in efforts to frustrate any resolution that might make its way to the UN Security Council. “China is our friend and we have a similar relationship with Russia, so it will not be possible for that issue to go forward.”
As for calls of terrorists sowing discord, Suu Kyi may well get her wish. Protests organised in Muslim regional powers are already pressing for the cutting of ties with Myanmar. Turkey is pressing for answers. The Islamist tide, should it duly affect the Rohingyas, will itself become a retaliatory reality.
Principles violated
This sting of crisis and realpolitik was all too much for certain members of the Suu Kyi fan club. It certainly was for veteran Guardian columnist George Monbiot. He, along with others, had looked to her when jailed (house arrest or otherwise) as pristine, the model prisoner, the ideal pro-democracy figure. When held captive, the purity was unquestioned.

Hopes were entrusted, and not counterfeit ones. “To mention her 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.” (The Guardian, 5 Sept 2017)

Not so now. Crimes documented by the UN human rights report of February have been ignored. The deliberate destruction of crops, avoided. Humanitarian aid has been obstructed. The military, praised. When violence has been acknowledged, it has only been to blame insurgents who represent, in any case, an interloping people who are denied their ethnicity by the 1982 Citizenship Law.

“I believe,” writes Monbiot, “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.”
How often has history shown that the prison is merely the prelude to a recurring nastiness, political calculation, and revenge? Far from enlightening the mind and restoring faith, it destroys optimism and vests the inmate with those survival skills that, when resorted to, can result in carnage and misery. Suu Kyi, in other words, is behaving politically, fearing the loss of her position, aware that behind her is a military that needs to be kept, at least partly, in clover.
Will ‘she wake up’
Other Nobel Laureates have also added their voices to the roll call of concern, less of condemnation than encouragement. One is Professor Muhammed Yunus. “These are her own people. She says ‘these are not my people, someone else’s people’, I would say she has completely departed from her original role which brought her the Nobel Prize.” (The Sydney Morning Herald, September 8, 2017.)
Yunus, however, is more optimistic that the selfish, distancing leader will return to her peaceful credentials. From a dark sleep, she will rise. “I still think she is the same Aung San Suu Kyi that won the Nobel Peace Prize; she will wake up to that person.”

Another is Desmond Tutu, who took the route of an open letter:
“My dear sister: If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep… We pray for you to speak out for justice, human rights and the unity of our people. We pray for you to intervene.”

The Nobel Institute, obviously moved by a sufficient number of calls to comment on the status of the award for the 1991 recipient, deemed the decision immutable. “Neither Alfred Nobel’s will nor the statutes of the Nobel Foundation,” confirmed its head Olav Njølstad, “provide the possibility that a Nobel Prize – whether for physics, chemistry, medicine, literature or peace – can be revoked.” (Washington Post, Sept 09, 2017)

As for the prize itself, it is long axiomatic that persons who tend to get it have blood on their hands. The terrorist, reborn, is feted by the Nobel Prize Committee. Before ploughshares came swords. Before peace, there was the shedding of blood. But, in some cases, it may well be the reverse: from the ploughshares come the swords, and the Rohingyas are tasting that awful fact.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
Countercurrents.org

 

[Banglar Bir]

Suu Kyi fails to save her Nobel image
Abdur Rahman Khan

Following weeks of silence in the face of ethnic cleansing against Rohingya population in Rakhine state (Arakan), Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has delivered a controversial speech much to the frustration of the global community.

In her address to the nation last week, Suu Kyi claimed her government did not “fear international scrutiny” over its handling of violence in Rakhine state. But she was criticised for what some saw as her ongoing reluctance to address the crisis and the government’s role in it.
An attempt to cover up
Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace award winner, won a landslide election in late 2015, ending decades of military rule. The army keeps controls of three key ministries – defence, home affairs and border affairs – making for weakened and arguably less effective civilian government in the face of the crisis.

While the current wave of violence began on 25 August with attacks by militant Rohingya groups, there was no “quiet and peace” in northern Rakhine, where the persecuted minority live. Before the attack, hundreds of Rohingya were prevented for weeks from going to work or fetching food.
The army was conducting regular, sometimes deadly, “clearance operations”. Rohingya militants have also been accused of killing suspected government informants.

The government and state media in majority-Buddhist Myanmar have squarely and repeatedly blamed the conflict on “extremist terrorists”, without condemning widely-reported abuses by the security forces or ethnic Buddhist mobs.

The ‘security offensive’, which was launched after a Rohingya militant group staged a series of attacks against police outposts, was branded a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing” by the UN.
In this context, Suu Kyi’s address has been views as an attempt to cover up the atrocities and massacre against the Rohingya Muslims in Rakhanie state.

In her speech, Aung San Suu Kyi sought to restore her tarnished reputation and defend her country by saying that most Rohingya Muslim villages have not been affected by spiraling violence which has forced more than 400,000 refugees to flood across the border.

But the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was condemned by Amnesty International for refusing to blame Burma’s army for carrying out abuses against the minority group.

In a closely watched televised speech last Tuesday, Ms Suu Kyi said: “There are allegations and counter allegations and we have to listen to all of them. And we have to make sure these allegations are based on solid evidence before we take action.”
OIC for ‘immediate action’
James Gomez, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific said, “Aung San Suu Kyi demonstrated that she and her government are still burying their heads in the sand over the horrors unfolding in Rakhine State.”

“At times, her speech amounted to little more than a mix of untruths and victim blaming.”
Suu Kyi has for years been feted in the West as a champion of democracy during years of military rule and house arrest but she has been facing growing criticism over the plight of the Rohingya caused by the army.

A meeting of Muslim countries’ grouping, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has called upon the UN Security Council to take “immediate action” on Myanmar to stop the Rohingya crisis. The meeting also urged the adoption of a resolution by the ongoing 72nd session of the UN General Assembly on the plight of Rohingya Muslims who are facing atrocities by the security forces.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the meeting presented a six-point proposal that includes their safe return to Myanmar, ending ‘state propaganda’ that labelled the ethnic group as ‘Bengalis’ and implementation of the Kofi Annan report.

The meeting also requested the OIC secretary general to make arrangements for a high-level delegation to visit Myanmar to discuss mutual concerns and the crisis, according to the resolution.
The meeting also requested the OIC secretary general to continue to explore initiatives with the UN secretary general and the ASEAN secretary general to engage with the government of Myanmar in resolving the plight of Rohingyas.
It’s a long-term problem: UN
The UN resident coordinator in Dhaka has asked Bangladesh to be prepared “psychologically” that it will have to deal with the Rohingya issue for a long time.
“This is something going to last for a long time. It’s a huge problem. It’s going to be a very big problem,” Robert Watkins told in an exclusive interview with bdnews24.com But he said the UN will be with Bangladesh in this journey and is set to revise its funding request to help those refugees and the local host Bangladeshis.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx

 

[Banglar Bir]

Suu Kyi and fraud of human rights imperialism
Peter Symonds

Angry Muslim protesters took to the streets from Jakarta to Dhaka to denounce Myanmar over allegations of indiscriminate killing and rape in a military crackdown on the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority in 2016.

THE PLIGHT of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fleeing the Burmese military’s rampage in the western state of Rakhine is a devastating exposure of the fraud of human rights imperialism practiced by the US and its allies and their chief political asset in Burma (Myanmar)—Aung San Suu Kyi.

The brutality and scale of the military operations have occasioned a great deal of hypocritical hand-wringing in the UN and by those who have aggressively promoted Suu Kyi as a “democracy icon.” Despite the media and humanitarian agencies being barred from the operational area, there is substantial and mounting evidence that the Burmese army has been systematically torching villages and there are numerous eyewitness accounts of soldiers gunning down civilians.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on13 September 2017 described what was taking place in Rakhine state as “ethnic cleansing,” saying: “When one-third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, could you find a better word to describe it?” The UN Security Council issued a statement that “expressed concern about reports of excessive violence” and appealed for steps to “de-escalate the situation,” protect civilians and resolve the refugee problem.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson last week joined the chorus of international appeals to Suu Kyi to use her influence to rein in the military. “Aung San Suu Kyi is rightly regarded as one of the most inspiring figures of our age, but the treatment of the Rohingya is alas besmirching the reputation of Burma,” he declared.

If the military’s ethnic cleansing had taken place a decade ago, when the Burmese junta had Suu Kyi under house arrest, the reaction would have been quite different. There would have been ringing condemnations from Western imperialism of the “rogue regime,” denunciations of its long history of human rights abuses and moves for even tougher diplomatic and economic sanctions against Burma.
Why is Washington now soft-peddling the latest military outrages in Burma? As is the case around the world, the US has never had the slightest interest in promoting basic democratic rights in Burma. Rather, its attitude toward the Burmese military dictatorship was always determined by economic and strategic interests—in particular, Washington’s hostility to the junta’s close ties with China.
As the Obama administration began to ramp up its “pivot to Asia” against China throughout the Asia Pacific, the Burmese junta, facing a mounting economic and social crisis at home, signalled a shift away from Beijing in 2011 and a willingness to find a political role for Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD).
Burma was designated in the US media not as a rogue state
It was as if a switch had been flicked. Virtually overnight, Burma was designated in the US and international media not as a rogue state, but as a “developing democracy.” A string of top American officials trooped in, culminating in a visit by President Barack Obama in 2012. Sanctions were progressively dropped and Suu Kyi became a roving ambassador for the junta, hustling for investment and aid.

The victory of the NLD in the carefully managed elections in 2016 and installation of Suu Kyi as de facto head of government was universally hailed by the establishment media, middle-class liberals and various pseudo-left organisations as the flowering of democracy. In reality, the military remains in charge: it appointed officers to a quarter of the parliamentary seats and installed serving generals to the key cabinet posts of defence, home affairs and border affairs.

Suu Kyi and the NLD went along with this charade because their basic concern was never with democratic rights as such. Rather, the NLD represents those sections of the Burmese bourgeoisie whose economic interests were stifled under the military junta. Aligned with Western imperialism, they sought to open up the country to investment.

Moreover, the NLD, Suu Kyi included, is just as mired as the military in the reactionary ideology of Burmese Buddhist supremacism, which has repeatedly been exploited to sow religious and ethnic divisions among working people. As hopes for an economic boom in Burma have faded, the military, with the NLD’s backing, has escalated violence against Muslim Rohingyas, who long have been used as a scapegoat for the country’s problems.

Suu Kyi and the NLD have taken no steps to address the lack of fundamental rights for the Rohingya minority, who are branded as “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh. Despite having lived, in many cases for generations, in Burma, they are not citizens and thus have no rights or access to social services.
Suu Kyi defended military’s ethnic cleansing
Suu Kyi has openly defended the military’s ethnic cleansing campaign, justified in the name of the “war on terrorism” and the need to suppress Rohingya militias that have sprung up in response to the army’s outrages. After criticism from the Turkish president last week, Suu Kyi lashed out against “fake news photographs” and “a huge iceberg of misinformation” that creates problems “with the aim of promoting the interest of the terrorists.”

The events in Burma are a graphic example of the cynical use of “human rights” to promote the interests of imperialism. But it is far from the only one. Time and again, the demonisation of leaders and regimes over “human rights” has been exploited as the pretext for illegal wars of aggression and regime-change operations. The US and its allies, supported by various liberals and pseudo-left groups, have laid waste to Iraq, Libya and Syria, leading to millions of deaths in a bid to shore up American hegemony in the strategic, energy-rich Middle East.

The situation in Burma underscores the basic conclusion drawn by Leon Trotsky more than a century ago in his Theory of Permanent Revolution, and confirmed by the Russian Revolution in 1917: the organic inability of any section of the bourgeoisie in countries with a belated capitalist development that are dominated by imperialism, such as Burma, to establish basic democratic rights. That task falls to the working class, in the fight to take power at the head of a revolutionary movement as an integral component of the struggle for socialism internationally.
http://www.weeklyholiday.net/Homepage/Pages/UserHome.aspx?ID=6&date=0#Tid=14767

 

[Banglar Bir]

Cartoon: Sieg Heil Suu Kyi
Refat
Published at 12:40 PM September 21, 2017
Last updated at 12:48 PM September 21, 2017
Global leaders and human rights organisations have called the military operations in Rakhine as nothing short of "genocide"
Aung San Suu Kyi calls the Rohingya crisis fake news, when people are still being massacred and driven away from their homes in Rakhine in Myanmar. The ignorance she has feigned in her first and only public address on the issue has been likened to a 20th Century dictator by countless people.

[URL='https://twitter.com/DhakaTribune'] DhakaTribune @DhakaTribune[/URL]
Sieg heil Suu Kyi! @OfficialSuuKyi now dubbed as 20th century #dictator after her first public address on #Rohingya issue- Cartoon- Rupam

 

[Banglar Bir]

War and the prize: How some Nobel laureates turn away from peace
Reuters
Published: 2017-09-28 03:36:54.0 BdST Updated: 2017-09-28 04:45:40.0 BdST

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi walks off the stage after delivering a speech to the nation over Rakhine and Rohingya situation, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar September 19, 2017. Reuters

Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi is the latest in a long line of Nobel Peace Prize laureates to disappoint many of those who once applauded her, and probably won't be the last, a cautionary tale for the 2017 laureate who will be named next week.
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Suu Kyi is facing international criticism, including from fellow peace prize winner Desmond Tutu, for not doing more to stop what the UN says are mass killings, rapes and the burning of villages taking place in Rakhine state.

The violence has forced 421,000 Rohingya Muslims into neighbouring Bangladesh.

That is a turnaround from 1991, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded her the prize and praised "her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights".

Once awarded, the prize cannot be withdrawn.

"This has happened many times before that laureates have been criticised," said Professor Geir Lundestad, who was the secretary of the Norwegian Nobel Committee from 1990 to 2014.

Lundestad said the prize remains a force for good, even if some winners later fall short of its ideals: “Aung Sang Suu Kyi was a very important spokeswoman for human rights in Burma and much of Asia. You cannot take that away from her.”

The Nobel prizes were established by Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, whose fortune came in part from making and selling arms.

The peace prize, worth 9 million Swedish Krona ($1.1 million) will be announced on Oct 6 and can go to one or more individuals or organisations.

A number of winners of the peace prize have gone on to launch wars or escalate them.

Israeli leader Menachem Begin ordered the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, four years after sharing the Nobel with Egypt's Anwar Sadat for their Camp David peace accord.

Sadat was assassinated by an Islamist army officer in 1981.

Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat shared the 1994 prize with Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres for the Oslo accords, which have not brought a lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

FILE PHOTO: Former Israel Prime Minister Shimon Peres (L) chats with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Gaza Strip, Israel October 13, 1998. REUTERS/Jim Tanner

Rabin was assassinated by a far-right nationalist in 1995 and Peres was voted out of office eight months later.
Arafat later presided over the Palestinians during the second intifada, a violent uprising against Israeli occupation.

Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, awarded the prize in 1990 for his role in bringing the Cold War to a peaceful end, sent tanks in 1991 to try to stop the independence of the Baltic countries, though he later let them become independent.

FILE PHOTO: Moscow - Russia - 09/05/2017 - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev attends the parade marking the World War II anniversary in Moscow. REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin

US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shared the 1973 prize with North Vietnam's Le Duc Tho for what turned out to be failed efforts to end the Vietnam War.
Tho declined the award, the only laureate ever to do so, accusing Washington of violating the truce. The war ended in 1975 with the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese.

When US President Barack Obama won in 2009 just months after taking office, even he said he was surprised.

By the time he came to Oslo to collect the prize at the end of the year, he had ordered the tripling of US troops in Afghanistan.

Former US President Barack Obama speaks at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeepers event in New York, US, September 20, 2017. Reuters

"I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated," he said in his speech. "I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land. Some will kill, and some will be killed. And so I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict."
Price too steep
Among Suu Kyi's critics is Tutu who, in a Sept 7 letter to his "dearly beloved younger sister" writes: "If the political price of your ascension to the highest office in Myanmar is your silence, the price is surely too steep."

Nobel peace prize laureates, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (R) and South African social rights activist and retired Anglican bishop Desmond Tutu (L) speak at Suu Kyi's house in Yangon, February 26, 2013. Reuters

On Sept 19, Suu Kyi condemned rights abuses in Rakhine state and said violators would be punished.
While Western diplomats and aid officials welcomed the tone of her message, some doubted if she had done enough to deflect global criticism.

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Dan Smith, the director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize might even have harmed the Rohingya.

"She has an aura," he said of Suu Kyi, adding that maybe her stellar international reputation "masked the true awfulness" of abuses over many years of the Rohingya.

"When she responded to questions about the Rohingya by saying 'why are you focusing on them, not on other issues?, people were inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt."

Suu Kyi was the rare winner, like Nelson Mandela, to rise from political prisoner to national leader. Mandela stepped down after five years as South Africa's first black president with his reputation largely unblemished, but some of his allies from the apartheid-era liberation movement faced scandals in office.

"Maybe it's this move from the image of the bold, heroic defender of human rights and ordinary people ... into what is inevitably a more grubby world of politics where compromises are made" that tarnishes reputations, said Smith.

Saints and sinners
Even saints face criticism. Mother Teresa, the 1979 Nobel winner canonised by Pope Francis last year, was faulted in 1994 by British medical journal The Lancet for offering neither diagnoses nor strong pain killers to dying patients in her Calcutta hospice.

The decision to give the award in 2012 to the European Union was criticised at the time.

Brussels was then imposing tough financial bailout conditions on member Greece that many economists said destroyed livelihoods.

Tutu, among others, also faulted the EU as an organisation that uses military force.

The risk of disappointment arises because Nobel committees pick laureates for the hope they carry or a recent achievement, rather than the sum of a career, said Asle Sveen, a historian of the Nobel Peace Prize.

"It is a always a risk when they promote somebody, because they are getting involved in politics," he told Reuters. "And they cannot predict what is going to happen in the future."

"That is what makes the Nobel Peace Prize different from all the other peace prizes," said Sveen. "Otherwise you would give the prize to very old people just before they die."

Among the favourites are parties to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, such as Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and John Kerry, the US Secretary of State at the time.

The deal, which saw Iran agree to curbs on its nuclear programme in return for the lifting of international sanctions, has been criticised by hardliners in both Tehran and Washington.

US President Donald Trump called it "an embarrassment to the United States" in a speech at the United Nations this month, and has suggested Washington could repudiate it.

Experts on the prize say it is precisely the sort of breakthrough among foes that the committee tends to recognise.

"This is the first time that a country subjected to Chapter VII (of the UN Charter) has seen its situation resolved peacefully," said Henrik Urdal, Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, referring to how Iran's nuclear programme is no longer labelled a threat by the UN Security Council.

"Focusing on the EU and Iran would also be a signal to the United States that the Iran nuclear deal has a broad support base," Urdal told reporters.

Other possible contenders are Pope Francis, Syria's "White Helmet" rescue crews, the UN refugee agency UNHCR and its high commissioner Filippo Grandi.

UNHCR has already won twice.
Last year's prize went to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos for his efforts to end half a century of war that killed a quarter of million people.
($1 = 8.1697 Swedish crowns)
http://bdnews24.com/world/2017/09/28/war-and-the-prize-how-some-nobel-laureates-turn-away-from-peace

 

[Banglar Bir]

Oxford college removes painting of Aung San Suu Kyi from display
St Hugh’s puts portrait in storage after international criticism over Myanmar leader’s role in her country’s humanitarian crisis

The portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi was painted by Chen Yanning. Photograph: Chen Yanning/St Hugh's college, Oxford University
Richard Adams Education editor
Friday 29 September 2017 18.02 BST Last modified on Friday 29 September 2017 23.25 BST

The Oxford college where Aung San Suu Kyi studied as an undergraduate has removed her portrait from public display and placed it in storage, in a move that follows international criticism over her role in Myanmar’s humanitarian crisis.

The governing body of St Hugh’s college decided to remove the painting of the Nobel laureate from its main entrance on Thursday, days before the start of the university term and the arrival of new students.

In 2012 Aung San Suu Kyi was celebrated with an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, and held her 67th birthday party at the college where she studied politics, philosophy and economics between 1964 and 1967.
But in recent months Myanmar’s leader has attracted increasing criticism for her apparent defence of the country’s treatment of its Rohingya minority, who have suffered ethnic cleansing and violent attacks by Myanmar’s military forces.

In a statement St Hugh’s said: “The college received the gift of a new painting earlier this month which will be exhibited for a period. The painting of Aung San Suu Kyi has, meanwhile, been moved to storage.”

St Hugh’s student newsletter, The Swan, said the decision to remove the portrait was taken by the college’s governing body, which includes the college’s fellows and its principal, Dame Elish Angiolini.

But the move by St Hugh’s was described as cowardly by the Burma Campaign UK group, which urged the college to go further.

“This seems a rather cowardly action by St Hugh’s. If they have taken down the portrait because of Aung San Suu Kyi defending the Burmese military as they commit ethnic cleansing against the Rohingya they should say so and write to her urging her to respect human rights,” said Mark Farmaner, the campaign’s director.

The portrait, painted by the artist Chen Yanning in 1997, belonged to Aung San Suu Kyi’s husband, the Oxford academic Michael Aris. After Aris’s death in 1999 the portrait was bequeathed to St Hugh’s, and hung near the college’s main entrance on St Margaret’s Road in north Oxford.

The college’s other notable alumni include Theresa May, Nicky Morgan, the former education secretary, and Barbara Castle, a cabinet minister in Harold Wilson’s Labour governments.

As a leader of Myanmar’s opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi won a Nobel peace prizein 1991. Despite being barred from running for president, she won a decisive victory in the country’s 2015 election, and was eventually given a title of state counsellor.

As prime minister, May has been under pressure to take action after evidence emerged that Myanmar’s military forces were driving hundreds of thousands of Rohingya out of the country.

Earlier this month May said: “Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese government need to make it very clear that the military action should stop.”

Oxford council is to vote next week on stripping Aung San Suu Kyi of the freedom of the city it bestowed on her in 1997, when she was being held as a political prisoner by Myanmar’s military junta.

So far Oxford University has decided not to reconsider Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary degree. But last week the university expressed its “profound concern” over the treatment of the Rohingya, a Muslim ethnic minority.

The university said it “hopes the Myanmar administration, led by Oxford alumna Aung San Suu Kyi, can eliminate discrimination and oppression, and demonstrate to the world that Myanmar values the lives of all its citizens”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ung-san-suu-kyi-from-display?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

[Banglar Bir]

The Nobel peace prize is a who’s who of hawks, hypocrites and war criminals
Arwa Mahdawi
Aung San Suu Kyi is the latest Nobel peace prize laureate to bring the award into disrepute. But people misunderstand what it stands for: absolutely nothing

Indian Muslims hold placards and shout slogans during a protest against the persecution of Rohingya Muslims Photograph: Tsering Topgyal/AP
Sunday 1 October 2017 17.00 BST Last modified on Monday 2 October 2017 00.10 BST

It’s that time of year again! The days are growing shorter and the smell of Nordic niceties is in the air. Yes, Monday marks the start of Nobel season, the world’s most prestigious prize-giving ceremony and our annual reminder that Norway exists. Over the course of the week, Nobel prizes will be awarded in six categories – but the only ones most people pay attention to are literature (particularly if the prize goes to a rock star) and peace.

There’s been quite a kerfuffle about the prestigious peace prize recently, what with that whole Aung San Suu Kyi being complicit in a genocide thing. Last month, Aung San Suu Kyi – who was awarded the 1991 Nobel peace prize “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights” – spent weeks struggling to mention anything about the human rights abuses being committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. When she finally broke her silence in late September, it was to give a Trump Esque “both sides” sort of speech, which Amnesty International denounced as a “mix of untruths and victim-blaming”.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s behaviour has led many to believe she no longer deserves to be a peace laureate and as of last week almost half a million people had signed a petition urging the Nobel committee to revoke her award. Now, I understand why so many people feel disappointed in Aung San Suu Kyi, I really do. But arguing she’s not worthy of her Nobel is nonsense. Sorry, but Aung San Suu Kyi absolutely deserves her peace prize. Asking the Nobel committee to revoke it is to misunderstand what the prize stands for. Which, to put it bluntly, is absolutely nothing.

Let’s face it, the Nobel peace prize is a farce; it has been for a long time. Really, it’s time we stopped pretending otherwise and put an end to the pomp and pretence altogether. Indeed, it’s amazing anyone can still say the words “Nobel peace prize” with a straight face considering its recipients constitute a who’s who of hawks, hypocrites and war criminals. I know, I know, #NotAll Nobel peace laureates! There have certainly been recipients, such as Desmond Tutu, who have greatly deserved to be recognised for their work in advancing peace. However, I’m afraid there have also been enough prize embarrassments to have rendered the award meaningless.

Chief among these is 1973 recipient Henry Kissinger, recognised for his efforts in negotiating a ceasefire in the Vietnam war. While negotiating that ceasefire, Kissinger was secretly carpet-bombing Cambodia. The worst of his bombing started in February 1973, a month after Washington, Hanoi and Saigon signed the Paris Peace accords. It’s little wonder that Le Duc Tho, the Vietnamese communist leader who was awarded the prize alongside Kissinger, rejected it in disgust.

Then you’ve got Shimon Peres, who was jointly awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1994 with Yitzhak Rabin, and Yasser Arafat. In the decades before getting the prize Peres systematically helped amp up Israel’s nuclear capabilities – which is completely at odds with the committee’s stipulation that the award should go to those who help demilitarise their country. What’s more, two years after the prize, Peres was responsible for a massacre that killed 106 people sheltering in a UN compound in the Lebanese town of Qana.

While Kissinger and Peres are two of the more egregious examples, there are numerous other peace laureates who have been extremely dubious choices, including Barack Obama, Colombian leader Juan Manuel Santos and the EU – to name just a few.

Indeed, the Nobel peace prize has become so tainted that some peace activists refuse to be associated with it. Mordechai Vanunu, a former nuclear technician who spent 18 years in prison for leaking details of Israel’s nuclear programme, has repeatedly asked be removed from a list of Nobel peace prize nominees. In a 2009 letter to the Nobel committee, he said he didn’t want “to belong to a list of laureates that also includes Shimon Peres, the man behind Israeli atomic policy”.

Perhaps it’s only to be expected that the Nobel peace prize has descended into farce. It was, after all, born out of a mistake. As the story goes, in 1888 a French newspaper erroneously wrote that Alfred Nobel, inventor of dynamite, had died. The paper marked the event of Alfred’s non-death with a bit of quality French snark: “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.” Nobel was mortified that he was going to be remembered as a “merchant of death” and so set up the Nobel prize. It was a calculated rebranding effort; an exercise in PR.

You might think that the peace prize has got to a place where it is beyond parody – indeed, Tom Lehrer memorably quipped that “political satire became obsolete when Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize”.

However, the Noble prize has actually spawned a rather notable parody. Every autumn since 1991, the Ig Nobel prizes recognise a number of unusual achievements “that first make people laugh, and then make them think”.

Fittingly, last year’s Ig Nobel peace award went to the authors of a study called On the Reception and Detection of Pseudo-Profound Bullshit. The introduction to the paper begins by stating that: “In On Bullshit, the philosopher Frankfurt (2005) defines bullshit as something that is designed to impress but that was constructed absent direct concern for the truth.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty apt definition of the real Nobel peace prize to me.
https://www.theguardian.com/comment...hypocrites-and-war-criminals?CMP=share_btn_fb

 

[wiseone2]

even before Obama, the peace prize was already tainted when Dr. of Death Henry Kissinger was given the prize. Obama basically won the prize because of the color of his skin and it was after Bush's horrible two terms as POTUS. Anyone who actually read what Obama was saying during his campaign knew he was a centrist and was going to continue the US empire's world domination, he was no anti-war candidate.

Kissenger is a cold blooded rascal. But give him credit. he replaced American doctrine of all out war with proxy wars.

FYI Kissenger did not start the Vietnam war. He tried to end it without America losing face