Aung San Suu Kyi: A Changed Nobel Peace Prize Laureate?

Even though most Nobel Peace Prize laureates went on to become nation-building peacemakers, is Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi fast becoming the exception? 

By: Ringo Bones 

During the last two decades of the 20^th Century, many of us assumed that Nobel Peace Prize laureates – like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu – are nation-building peacemakers. But for those of us old enough to remember those good old days where Nobel Peace Prize laureates went on to do great things within the path of peace that are still of geopolitical importance, it seems that the recent Myanmar Rohingya Muslim refugee crisis has tarnished everyone’s expectations of Aung San Suu Kyi – who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize back in 1991 – and was supposedly would have transitioned Myanmar into a civilian run democracy since her appointment as State Counselor (a position akin to a Prime Minister) just like what Mandela and Tutu had done to South Africa by ending Apartheid peacefully. 

For those closely following her political career since the end of her house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi’s “silence” over the plight of the Rohingya Muslim minorities in Myanmar might be explained due to her need to gain support from the majority Bamar ethnicity as she was in the middle of a general election campaign back in 2015. But as the violence committed against Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims and their exodus into neighboring Bangladesh recently got worse and worse and with video evidence reminiscent of the notorious ethnic cleansing incidences of the Balkans back in the mid 1990s, Suu Kyi’s recent UN General Assembly speech which was tinged with “both sides are to blame” Trumpisms had made many to question if she still deserves her Nobel Peace Prize or might the Nobel Committee be allowed to strip her of her prized accolade due to her adopting an ineffectual stance when it comes to the plight of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims.

Nobel Peace Prize: No Nobel Laureate Left Behind?

As heroic Burmese human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi finally been able to accept in person the Nobel Peace prize that was awarded to her back in 1991, does this mean that the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t leave any laureates behind? 

By: Ringo Bones

Its now official – in June 16, 2012 – Burmese human rights campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi has finally been able to formally accept the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to her back in 1991 in Oslo, Norway. It took 21 years for Aung San Suu Kyi to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in person because she was subjected under house arrest by the Burmese junta for the same length of time. And she was just recently been freed and allowed travel outside Burma. According to the Nobel Peace prize Committee in Oslo, Norway – Ang San Suu Kyi was proven to be a good moral leader, then and now. Does this spell good hope to those Nobel Peace Laureates who were unable to formally accept theirs? 

The 2010 Mainland Chinese Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo was still unable to formally accept his own Nobel because he is currently serving a lengthy prison term in a Mainland Chinese maximum security prison for his work calling for more freedom for the average Mainland Chinese citizen. Sadly, the Beijing government doesn’t approve of this, denying Liu Xiaobo to formally accept his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. But like Aung San Suu Kyi, his Nobel awaits that glorious day when he will be able to accept in person his Nobel – whether it takes 20 years or more.