Myanmar’s Suu Kyi to keep Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel chief Lars Heikensten says Aung San Suu Kyi's actions are "regrettable" but she will keep her peace prize.
Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi is seen while she waits for a meeting with Vietnam's President Tran Dai Quang (not pictured) at the Presidential Palace during the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi, Vietnam on September 13, 2018.
The Nobel Foundation is not planning to strip Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi of her Nobel Peace Prize, despite UN calls for the top leaders of the Myanmar military to be tried on genocide charges for their treatment of the country's Rohingya minority.
Head of the Nobel Foundation, Lars Heikensten, was speaking in Stockholm ahead of the announcement of this year's winner of the prestigious award.
Heikensten said some of her actions had been "regrettable," but it made no sense to withdraw awards in reaction to things that happened after they were given, as judges would constantly have to discuss laureates' merits.
UN investigators issued a report in August accusing Myanmar's military of carrying out mass killings of Muslim Rohingya with "genocidal intent" in an operation that drove more than 700,000 refugees across the border to Bangladesh.
Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy and now leads the Myanmar government. She was accused in the same report of failing to use her "moral authority" to protect civilians.
"We see what she's been doing in Myanmar has been questioned a lot and we stand for human rights, that's one of our core values," Heikensten said.
"So of course to the extent that she's responsible for that, that is very regrettable," he added.
Myanmar government spokesman Zaw Htay did not answer phone calls seeking comment on Monday. He said last month he would no longer speak to the media over the phone, only at a biweekly conference.
Myanmar has rejected the UN findings as "one-sided." It says the military action, which followed militant attacks on security forces in August last year, was a legitimate counterinsurgency operation.
Suu Kyi said last month that in hindsight her government could have handled the situation in Rakhine state better, but did not acknowledge any major crimes.
The Stockholm-based Nobel Foundation oversees the administration of all the Nobel Prizes, which are awarded by different organisations in Sweden and Norway.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the Peace Prize, said in August that its rules did not allow awards to be withdrawn.
The laureate of this year's Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday in the Norwegian capital Oslo.
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