My eyes fell out of their sockets when I read this contemptible statement about Aung San Suu Kyi in a politically atrocious article in Counterpunch titled “Rohingyas: a Humanitarian Crisis in Search of a Political Solution”:

“It’s pointless & unproductive to blame ASSK for not speaking out against the atrocities committed by the military. She is powerless to stop it; & she is a politician, not Mother Teresa. It’s political suicide for her to speak out on the atrocities against the minorities, especially during the election campaign last year.”

It’s true she has no control over the military who really run Burma. But she has deliberately chosen to front for them in genocide against the Rohingya people & in neoliberal scorched earth economic policies. Tens of thousands of principled Burmese are in exile because of their opposition to the politics of the junta & to the genocide. If she, as the holder of countless human rights awards, can’t speak out, then she ought to leave. But she won’t speak out because she wholeheartedly agrees with their policies in politics, economics, & genocide. Enough with the shameful apologetics.