Bob Geldof calls Aung San Suu Kyi 'handmaiden to genocide'

[webfact]

Bob Geldof calls Aung San Suu Kyi 'handmaiden to genocide'

By Padraic Halpin

 

Bob Geldof arrives to return his 'Freedom of the City of Dublin' with local councillor Mannix Flynn and Oonagh Casey of Dublin's City Manager's office, after saying he could not continue to hold the honour with Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in Dublin, Ireland, November 13, 2107. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

 

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish musician and activist Bob Geldof called Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi "a hand maiden to genocide" on Monday as he returned his Freedom of the City of Dublin award in protest over his fellow recipient's response to the repression of Rohingya Muslims.

 

"I don't want to be on a very select roll of wonderful people with a killer," Geldof told state broadcaster RTE. "Someone who is at best a handmaiden to genocide and an accomplice to murder."

 

More than 600,000 Muslims from Myanmar's Rakhine state have fled to refugee camps in Bangladesh after military operations described by the United Nations as ethnic cleansing.

 

Their plight has drawn outrage around the world. But Suu Kyi, long seen as a champion of human rights, has been criticised for failing to speak out against violence. There have been calls for her to be stripped of the Nobel Peace Prize she won in 1991.

 

Suu Kyi was given the Freedom of Dublin in 1999 while she was held under house arrest by Myanmar's then military government. She received her award at a reception in Ireland in 2012, two years after her release.

 

"Her association with our city shames us all and we should have no truck with it, even by default. We honoured her, now she appals and shames us," Geldof said in a statement.

 

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Micheal Mac Donncha, said the city council had discussed taking away the honour and the matter was still under review. Last month she was stripped of a similar honour by the British university city of Oxford, where she was an undergraduate.

 

But Mac Donncha, a councillor for the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party, also criticised Geldof's gesture, saying it was ironic as Geldof held a British knighthood despite "the shameful record of British imperialism across the globe".

 

The former Boomtown Rats singer was given an honorary knighted in 1986 in recognition of his charity work, including organising the 1985 Live Aid concert to help those suffering from starvation and disease in Ethiopia.

 

Other foreign recipients of the Freedom of Dublin include John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela and Mikhail Gorbachev.

 

Irish rockers U2, who had campaigned for Suu Kyi's release while she was a political prisoner, also voiced disappointment and said her silence was "starting to look a lot like assent".

 

"Who could have predicted that if more than 600,000 people were fleeing from a brutal army for fear of their lives, the woman who many of us believed would have the clearest and loudest voice on the crisis would go quiet," the band said in a statement.

 

"For these atrocities against the Rohingya people to be happening on her watch blows our minds and breaks our hearts."

 

The Myanmar military says it launched the crackdown in response to attacks by Rohingya militants.

 

(Reporting by Padraic Halpin,; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Angus MacSwan)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-11-14

[canopus1969]

For once I have to agree with him  

[chezy86]

For once I have to agree with him  

Bob Geldof got no time for him anymore. Jumped on the charity bandwagon and made millions out of it and evaded Tax in the process. Who cares what he thinks even if he is right.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[bristolgeoff]

don,t worry about the do gooder,he is considered a idiot in the uk.anything for  cause and a few quid for himself.he is nobody thru and thru

[bert bloggs]

Who listens to anything Geldof says ,just another tax avoiding ,luvvie millionaire ,who was famous as a pop star once ,but faded into obscurity until he found the "charity" bandwagon .

[baansgr]

He doesn't seem to say anything about the genocide of Christians in Egypt. 

[geriatrickid]

What does Geldof expect from this woman? She is  still a prisoner of the military, albeit living in a gilded cage. She isn't responsible for the  violence. The responsibility lies with the  army who still rule Burma/Myanmar. She's on a short leash and if she misbehaves the army will take back the small extension of civil liberties already granted.

[punchjudy]

Geldof is a hypocrite

[NanLaew]

2 minutes ago, punchjudy said:

Geldof is a hypocrite

...and still a #1 master of self-abuse.

[DM07]

...and he is 100% right!

[billy54]

I dont recall ,him standing up and mouthing off about them (  Rohingya Muslim 's) slaying the buddhist's who's home country it is ,strange that , 

[Rancid]

There is a lot of conflicting information coming out of Burma, not sure what the real story is. Do seem to recall though a false flag to get the West to support Muslim in Bosnia, hopefully we aren't going down that path right on Thailand's border.

[twix38]

I never liked Aung San Suu Kyi.

Always thought she was an oppinonated, obstanant women who would be unyielding to others suffering because of her steel and self determination that obscure and impede true compassion and focus.

 

She isn't looking or listening! or is she blind and deaf?

 

She is a hard <deleted> who views the Rohingya in a similar way to the Army, if truth is told.

[dexterm]

3 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

What does Geldof expect from this woman? She is  still a prisoner of the military, albeit living in a gilded cage. She isn't responsible for the  violence. The responsibility lies with the  army who still rule Burma/Myanmar. She's on a short leash and if she misbehaves the army will take back the small extension of civil liberties already granted.

Geldorf  expects her to speak up for the human and civil rights of part of Burma's population..the reason she was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, the Freedom of the City of Dublin and other accolades.

 

If she prefers her gilded cage to upsetting the military, then she is a hypocrite. Her credibility is in tatters. That will be her legacy, when she could have been a giant among fighters for freedom.

 

She isnt responsible for the original violence, but her silence now encourages the Burmese junta's barbaric ethnic cleansing.

 

Evil triumphs when good men and women do nothing.

[Jingthing]

She lived too long. 

She could have always been remembered as a kind of political saint. 
She has definitely mucked that up. 

[opalred]

you have to laugh at these do gooders 

how would they like a million Muslims walk into there country over the years without visas 

build there own towns and start farming

then say we own this country ?

[dexterm]

1 minute ago, opalred said:

you have to laugh at these do gooders 

how would they like a million Muslims walk into there country over the years without visas 

build there own towns and start farming

then say we own this country ?

Nonsense Islamophobia.

Burma consists of many ethnic groups and religions who have lived in Burma over centuries.

 

[Jingthing]

3 minutes ago, opalred said:

you have to laugh at these do gooders 

how would they like a million Muslims walk into there country over the years without visas 

build there own towns and start farming

then say we own this country ?

you have to laugh at these ignorant trash talking genocide approving do badder Islamophobes ... 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Jingthing

[blazes]

Who gives a rat's arse about Geldof?

 

Maybe Geldof should put on a show to raise lots of shekels to help dispatch the Rohingya to Saudi Arabia.....their natural home.

[dexterm]

18 minutes ago, blazes said:

Who gives a rat's arse about Geldof?

 

Maybe Geldof should put on a show to raise lots of shekels to help dispatch the Rohingya to Saudi Arabia.....their natural home.

Racist troll.

Racism is a form of mental illness. A severe inferiority complex..putting others down because they are different just to make oneself feel superior.

[Jingthing]

19 minutes ago, blazes said:

Who gives a rat's arse about Geldof?

 

Maybe Geldof should put on a show to raise lots of shekels to help dispatch the Rohingya to Saudi Arabia.....their natural home.

The shekel is not the currency of Ireland, Myanmar, Bangladesh, or Saudi Arabia. 

[blazes]

1 minute ago, Jingthing said:

The shekel is not the currency of Ireland, Myanmar, Bangladesh, or Saudi Arabia. 

Quite so, but the term has been used for decades to signify a form of monetary exchange in Arab lands.  Usually for comic purposes.  As here.

[blazes]

3 minutes ago, dexterm said:

Racist troll.

Racism is a form of mental illness. A severe inferiority complex..putting others down because they are different just to make oneself feel superior.

 

Thank you so much for that perceptive slice of pathetic psychoanalysis.

[Jingthing]

4 minutes ago, blazes said:

Quite so, but the term has been used for decades to signify a form of monetary exchange in Arab lands.  Usually for comic purposes.  As here.

Nice try. Rohingya ain't Arabs. 

[dexterm]

5 minutes ago, blazes said:

 

Thank you so much for that perceptive slice of pathetic psychoanalysis.

Has any Rohingya ever done you any harm?

If not, ask yourself why you display such obvious hatred. There's something strange going on inside your head.

 

Treat people as you find them on an individual basis. Room enough for all of us on the planet.

[blazes]

1 minute ago, dexterm said:

 

Treat people as you find them on an individual basis. Room enough for all of us on the planet.

 

As a matter of fact, there is not enough room on this planet for all of us, especially not (racist remark alert) if the adherents of a certain religion breed at a rate well in advance of the more sophisticated and less misogynistic breeding practices in what is laughably (I admit) called the civilized world.

[dexterm]

3 minutes ago, blazes said:

 

As a matter of fact, there is not enough room on this planet for all of us, especially not (racist remark alert) if the adherents of a certain religion breed at a rate well in advance of the more sophisticated and less misogynistic breeding practices in what is laughably (I admit) called the civilized world.

I have nothing against Roman Catholicism either.

 

Love multiculturalism...makes the world a more interesting place.

[greenchair]

Bob geldolf has no idea about the problems of Burma. 

The international community is trying to force the burmese to accept them, simply because nobody else wants the head ache. The bengali do not want to integrate, they want a seperate muslim state. They attacked first. Aug sang should dig her heels in now and don't let this opportunity pass. Like Australia has done. 

 

[balo]

In my opinion it's the army who is in control in Burma and not Aung San Suu Kyi . Maybe she can't do anything about it. 

 

[dexterm]

16 minutes ago, balo said:

In my opinion it's the army who is in control in Burma and not Aung San Suu Kyi . Maybe she can't do anything about it. 

 

Yes, she can do something about it. She could open her mouth. That's all she need do with her high profile to draw attention to this genocide.