In prose and poetry, Myanmar’s ruling junta has launched scathing attacks on two distinguished human rights advocates, Czech ex-president Vaclav Havel and retired South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who both recently compiled a report critical of the military regime.
The criticism came after Havel and Nobel peace laureate Tutu — both staunch supporters of detained Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, another Nobel laureate — advocated in their report last month that the United Nations Security Council take action against the military government.
Over the past week, state-run media have been denouncing the two men for their ”ill will towards Myanmar with intent to disrupt stability”.
In a poem published on Tuesday in the English-language New Light of Myanmar newspaper, Byan Hlawr wrote of how he believed the founder of the Nobel awards, Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel, would be appalled at the critical report:
”If recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize are discovered as working to destroy a nation, and clearly discerned by Alfred, he surely will turn in his grave, remorseful that what he had initiated and established had gone wrong. He would only lament regretfully.”
Myanmar’s current military government took power in 1988 after brutally crushing a pro-democracy movement.
In 1990, it refused to hand over power when Suu Kyi’s party won a landslide victory in general elections. – Sapa-AP