Daily Times

JAKARTA –Rachmawati Sukarnoputri – daughterof Indonesia’s founding president – hasdefended honouring North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un with an award for statesmanship, dismissing criticisms of his human rights record as Western propaganda.

Sukarnoputri confirmed the leader would receive an award from her organisation– theSukarno Education Foundation – inSeptember for his peace, justice and humanity.The decision to award the leader such an accolade – handedin the past to such freedom icons as India’s Mahatma Gandhi and Myanmar’s Aung San SuuKyi– hasmade headlines and triggered an outpouring of ‘ridicule’ and ‘disbelief.’

But Sukarnoputri brushed aside questions of Kim’s suitability for the award, saying the young leader should be honoured for his fight against neo-colonialist imperialism. “The allegations about human rights abuses are untrue,” she said. “That’s all just Western propaganda. Those Western governments like to put ugly labels on North Korea,” she said.

Her father, Indonesia’s first president Sukarno, established early ties with North Korea back in the 1950s. Jakarta has maintained open relations with Pyongyang ever since. In April, President JokoWidodo hosted a delegation from North Korea as part of an international conference.

It is not the first time the Sukarno Education Foundation has handed its top prize to a member of North Korea’s ruling family. In 2001, the award was posthumously given to Kim’s grandfather, the state’s founding father Kim IlSung.