Attacking Aung San Suu Kyi won’t save the Rohingya – she is still the best hope for Myanmar

Christopher Johnson says critics of the Nobel Peace Prize winner don’t understand Myanmar’s politics, its history, or how easily the country could return to military dictatorship

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Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi addresses the 71st UN General Assembly in New York last September. Once an icon of democracy and human rights, Suu Kyi has come increasingly under fire for her silence as Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims are persecuted, but her defenders argue that speaking out might prompt another military coup. Photo: Reuters

Published: 3:15pm, 18 Sep 2017Updated: 7:16pm, 18 Sep 2017

Bishop Desmond Tutu, Malala Yousafzai, Justin Trudeau and many others are pressuring Aung San Suu Kyi over her response to the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

More than 400,000 signed a Change.org petition to take back Suu Kyi’s 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, and 20,000 want her honorary Canadian citizenship revoked.

Do they understand Myanmar’s politics and history of ethnic violence better than her? Of course not, and they should stop smearing a woman who, like millions of minorities, faces persecution from Myanmar’s generals.

Instead of placating foreigners, Suu Kyi was elected to serve constituents who post videos online accusing Rohingya Muslims of taking scarce land and resources from Buddhists, beheading monks, raping women and sparking clashes with victims on all sides.

Suu Kyi said on Facebook that her government was “defending all the people in Rakhine in the best way possible”. She decried those who spread “fake information” to promote “the interests of terrorists” such as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, blamed for killing police and border officials last month.

She’s also dealing with a military chief, Min Aung Hlaing, who vowed to never let “Bengali terrorists” repeat 1940s atrocities in Rakhine.