The Rohingyas are the most persecuted minority in the world, according to the United Nations. They are a minority in Mayanmar, formerly known as Burma. They are not recognised as citizens of Mayanmar though their roots in the country go back several hundred years. Some scholars date their presence in the country to the last couple of hundred years or even much more recent times. Be that as it may those alive today have known no other country as their own. Rohingya happen to belong to the Muslim faith. The Bin Ladens of the Buddhist variety continue to persecute them driving them to take to the seas to seek refuge from the extreme violence and deprivation which they now suffer inside Mayanmar. The world has been mostly silent in the face of this ethnic cleansing.
A Mayamaran herself Aung San Suu Kyi the Nobel Laureate who in 1991 received the Nobel Prize for Peace for her opposition to the brutal dictatorship in Mayanmar has too been deafeningly silent on the atrocities committed on the Rohingyas. The Nobel Committee had honoured her as an "important symbol in the struggle against oppression" in an effort to show its support for people peacefully "striving for democracy and human rights.." across the world. Suu Kyi's silence has been noticed by a fellow Nobel recipient the Dalai Lama. He has called on her to speak out on the violence perpetrated on the Rohingya of her country. Her response has been to describe the plight of the Rohingya "a problem for the government to solve" and to defend her silence claiming "she is a politician, not a human rights defender".
So now we know this once celebrated woman to be a mere politician too cowardly and opportunistic to stand up for the persecuted of her own country because the persecuted in this case are Muslims in the majority Buddhist country. In 2016 she may want to run to be the president of Mayanmar. She fears offending the Buddhist majority by standing up for the Rohingya minority.
Mayanmarans may or may not elect her president in 2016 depending on whether or not she stands for anything at all other than her silence on the most horrible crimes against humanity being committed on people in her country. But the Nobel Committee obviously made a huge error in honouring Suu Kyi believing she stood for human rights. She confesses she is no human rights defender. The Nobel Committee may want to revisit Suu Kyi's award, rectify its error and rescind the Nobel. I would urge them to do so. In the case of Suu Kyi the Nobel is no longer noble.