Canada to revoke Suu Kyi’s honorary citizenship

Canadian MPs have voted unanimously to rescind the honorary citizenship of Myanmar's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

Background

Aung San Suu Kyi is the de facto leader of Myanmar. In 2015, she led her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), to a majority win in Myanmar's first openly contested election in 25 years. In the 1990 elections, NLD won 81% of the seats in Parliament, but the results were nullified, as the military refused to hand over power, resulting in an international outcry. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest for almost 15 of the 21 years from 1989 to 2010, becoming one of the world's most prominent political prisoners. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar.

However, despite being hailed as a universal symbol for fighting oppressive powers, she has been criticized for allowing oppression since coming to power. She has incurred harsh criticism in particular regarding the government’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims. The Rohingya are an ethnic Muslim minority group from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state. A fresh bout of violence erupted in Myanmar on August 25th, 2017 which resulted in a mass exodus of the Rohingya from Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh.

Given their persecution, thousands have fled the region in boats. Due to violent riots, since 2012, over 110,000 Rohingya left Myanmar and headed to countries like Thailand and Malaysia.

In 2007, Canada granted honorary citizenship to Ms Suu Kyi, just one of six people to be so recognised.

Analysis

The Canadian Parliament voted to revoke Aung San Suu Kyi’s honorary citizenship due to her inaction in the ongoing Rohingya Crisis. Passing the motion was a response to her failure to stop the persecution of the Rohingya minority in her country.

Ms Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her efforts to bring democracy to Myanmar - also known as Burma - which was then under military rule.

A UN report last month said Myanmar military leaders must be investigated for genocide against the Rohingyas. At least 700,000 Rohingya have fled violence in the country in the past 12 months.

The move by MPs in the House of Commons came a day after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that parliament was reconsidering whether Ms Suu Kyi still deserved the honour of citizenship.

However, PM Trudeau also said the move would not end the plight of hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people, a Muslim minority which is stateless in majority-Buddhist Myanmar.

Honorary citizenship has been conferred in Canada by a joint resolution of both houses of parliament, therefore it required both houses to revoke it as well.  Earlier this month, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion to recognise the crimes against the Rohingya as an act of genocide.

In 2015, Ms Suu Kyi became Myanmar State Counsellor, the de facto head of the country's civilian administration, following a democratic opening in Myanmar.

Since last year, at least 700,000 Rohingyas have fled Myanmar after the army launched a brutal crackdown in response to attacks by a Rohingya militant group. Ms Suu Kyi has faced international pressure to condemn the army's alleged brutality. However, she has refused to do so.

The military still holds immense power in the country and controls three key ministries - home affairs, border affairs and defence.

Assessment

Our assessment is that despite being regarded the hope and saviour of Myanmar’s democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi’s government has remained starkly silent over the criticism of the Rohingya crisis. Access to Rakhine has been tightly controlled by the military with journalists not allowed to report from there. We believe that revoking honorary titles is not enough, and Canada should pursue this matter of genocide with the ICJ like it has initiated a case against Venezuela for human rights violations.