[Like many people in Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has steadfastly denied reports of ethnic cleansing, going so far as to call them fake news. Though she said this month that the crisis “could have been handled better,” she says other countries have ignored violent attacks by armed Rohingya militants against members of other ethnic and religious groups in Rakhine. About 50 people have been killed in those attacks, according to local officials.]
By Jennifer Jett
 |
|
Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s civilian leader, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
of
Canada in Ottawa last year. She received honorary Canadian citizenship in 2007
for
her pro-democracy work. Credit Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press,
via
Associated Press
|
HONG
KONG — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
Myanmar’s civilian leader, was stripped of her honorary Canadian citizenship on
Tuesday over her inaction on military violence against the country’s Rohingya
Muslims.
Senators unanimously passed a measure
revoking her citizenship and declaring the treatment of the Rohingya by
Myanmar’s government to be a genocide. The same actions were unanimously
approved last week by the House of Commons.
Those votes were prompted in part by a United
Nations investigation that in August called for six top generals in Myanmar to
be tried on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled
across the border to Bangladesh since August 2017, when Myanmar’s
Buddhist-majority security forces began a violent campaign in Rakhine State
that has included executions, gang rape and the burning of hundreds of
villages. About 10,000 people have been killed, the United Nations says.
Like many people in Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi has steadfastly denied reports of ethnic cleansing, going so far as to call
them fake news. Though she said this month that the crisis “could have been
handled better,” she says other countries have ignored violent attacks by armed
Rohingya militants against members of other ethnic and religious groups in
Rakhine. About 50 people have been killed in those attacks, according to local
officials.
The Rohingya crisis and Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi’s response to it have dramatically transformed her global reputation as a
democracy icon.
Senator Ratna Omidvar, who introduced the
motion in the Canadian chamber, said that while the military wields
considerable power in Myanmar, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi — who holds a post
comparable to prime minister — is not without power herself.
“Stripping her of her honorary citizenship
may not make a tangible difference to her, but it sends an important symbolic
message,” Ms. Omidvar said. “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.”
Ms. Omidvar also cited the imprisonment of
two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the atrocities. Ms. Aung San Suu
Kyi has defended the judge’s verdict and sentence in that case.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi received honorary
citizenship from Canada in October 2007 for her pro-democracy campaign in
Myanmar, where she spent 15 years under house arrest under the former military
government. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Lars Heikensten, the head of the Nobel
Foundation, told Reuters last week that while Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s actions
were “regrettable,” her Nobel Peace Prize would not be withdrawn because it
made no sense to judge laureates on their actions after they received their
awards.
Other people with honorary Canadian
citizenship include Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and
education activist, and the Dalai Lama.
