Take freedom of city off Aung San Suu Kyi? I must ask my bosses
As outrage grows over Myanmar atrocities, Irish Amnesty chief says:
HUMAN rights charity chief Colm O’Gorman says he won’t call on Aung San Suu Kyi to lose the Freedom of Dublin as his international bosses would have to okay it first.
Nobel Peace Laureate and former darling of human rights campaigners, Ms Suu Kyi is fast becoming an international pariah over her attitude to the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Myanmar where she is leader.
According to the United Nations, a military crackdown on the largely Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar’s Rakhine province included summary executions, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture, ill-treatment and forced labour. The UN added that these ‘crimes against humanity’ led to 389,000 Rohingya Muslims crossing into neighbouring Bangladesh in the past two weeks, as their villages were attacked and burned. There were even claims that landmines have been laid in the paths of the fleeing families.
But Suu Kyi’s response was first silence, followed by saying it was for ‘anti-terror’ reasons. This led former South African archbishop Desmond Tutu to urge her to protect the Rohingya, while five Nobel laureates, including Northern Ireland Peace People founder Mairead Maguire, have told her she has a moral responsibility to defend the persecuted people. And 365,000 people signed an online petition calling on the Nobel Institute to rescind her Nobel Peace Prize, which was awarded to her in 1991.
However, while Amnesty Ireland, where Mr O’Gorman is Executive Director, campaigned for Ms Suu Kyi and helped win support for her to be granted the Freedom of Dublin, he told the Irish Mail on Sunday that the decision to call for the Freedom of Dublin City Council to be rescinded is not his to make.
He said: ‘We have been very, very clear in our condemnation of Aung San Suu Kyi, first of all her silence and then, frankly, the appalling statement she made when she did speak.’ But he said he would have to seek clearance from his international bosses to make such a call.
‘As an organisation you’ll appreciate that in order for me to make that decision I would have to pick up the phone and make sure there’s no issue with it,’ he said.
‘At this time I’m not going to commit to it. It is an issue for Dublin City Council and if they need to reflect on their decision then it’s up to them. We would never make a call of an organisation that isn’t possible; I’ve heard some people saying that it isn’t possible.’
Amnesty had campaigned vigorously for Ms Suu Kyi to be released from house arrest, where she was held for periods between 1989 and 2010. She was awarded the Freedom of Dublin in 1999, on the same day as U2, but could only collect it in 2012, after her release, when she also visited Áras an Uachtaráin.
At the same time numerous luminaries of music, the arts, politics and society were present at a special concert for her, including stars U2, Damien Rice, Vanessa Redgrave, Bob Geldof and Riverdance members. And Amnesty International gave her their highest accolade, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. That award was announced from the stage at a U2 concert in Croke Park in 2009.
Asked why that has yet to be withdrawn, Mr O’Gorman insisted that it wasn’t ‘our priority’.
He said: ‘It’s a perfectly reasonable question for somebody to ask and normally when any organisation or anybody else gives out an award they have a mechanism for giving it out, they’re not normally things people would withdraw so it’s not something we’ve had to look at before, but again when you’re trying to respond to the situation we’re responding to in Myanmar and Rakhine Province, and on the border with Bangladesh, that’s our primary concern.
‘The easiest thing in the world to do would be to do something like going, “in response to all of this we’re going to withdraw an award from Aung San Suu Kyi”. It’s so far beyond our priorities at the moment that it’s not something that is the focus of our attention.’
The Nobel Institute has also said it is not possible to strip a laureate of his or her award.
Dublin city council has passed a motion to check the legality of removing her name from the roll.
However, there does appear to be some precedent. The council voted to expunge Celtic scholar and German national Kuno Meyer from the Roll in 1915 after he delivered a pro-German speech at the start of World War 1. Mr Meyer had been given the freedom of the city for his services to the Irish race and Irish language in 1912. And in 1920 WT Cosgrave introduced a motion to reintroduce his name back onto the Roll, where it remains today.
‘I’d have to phone to be sure there’s no issue’ Families fled as their villages were burned