Aung San Suu Kyi won't be stripped of Nobel Peace prize, says head of foundation

Lars Heikensten says leader's failure to protect civilians was 'regrettable', but it made no sense to withdraw awards in reaction to events which happen after they were given

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi will keep her Nobel Peace Prize (Getty)

Aung San Suu Kyi will not have her Nobel Peace Prize withdrawn even though some of the actions she has taken as Myanmar’s civilian leader have been "regrettable", the head of the Nobel Foundation has said.

Speaking days before this year's prize is awarded, Lars Heikensten said 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.

United Nations (UN) investigators issued a report in August accusing Myanmar’s military of carrying out mass killings of Muslim Rohingya with “genocidal intent”.

The operation drove more than 700,000 refugees across the border to Bangladesh, it said.

Ms Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for campaigning for democracy and now leads the Myanmar government, 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,” Mr Heikensten said. “So of course to the extent that she’s responsible for that, that is very regrettable."

Myanmar Government spokesman Zaw Htay did not respond phone calls seeking comment, having said last month that 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 said the military action, which followed militant attacks on security forces in August last year, was a legitimate counterinsurgency operation.

Ms 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.

“We don’t believe it would make sense to try to withdraw prizes... it would involve us in constant discussions about the merits about what people are doing afterwards, after they have received the prize,” Mr Heikensten said.

He added: “There has always been and there always will be Nobel laureates that are doing things after they’ve been awarded the prize which we do not approve of or which we don’t think are the right things. That we cannot avoid I think."

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 Oslo.

Reuters