Bob Geldof has excoriated Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump as “autocrats [who] insult us as human beings” and described Myanmar’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi as “one of the great ethnic cleansers of our planet”.

Speaking at the One Young World summit in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, the activist and musician launched into a wide-ranging tirade, saying he was “fed up with this world” and “sick of these leaders”.

“I am sick of Putin, I am sick of Xi Jinping, I am sick of Trump, I am sick of Erdogan,” he told the summit of 1,400 young leaders from 196 countries. Also present were four Nobel peace laureates: Juan Manuel Santos, the Colombian president, former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, Yemeni journalist Tawakkol Karman and Bangladeshi entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus.

“I am sick that on this stage are some of the greatest people who have fought for justice and peace and equality in our world,” he said, before invoking 1991 Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi without mentioning her name. “And one of their number in Myanmar insults them, insults them all, who took the greatest prize that humans can give to another and then becomes one of the great ethnic cleansers of our planet. This is a disgrace.”

Geldof’s attack is the latest in a string of criticisms levelled at the 72-year-old politician, who has come under intense international scrutiny for not speaking out against what the UN deems “ethnic cleansing” taking place in Rakhine state against the Rohingya minority.

More than 500,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar to Bangladesh in the past month alone, where they are now living in makeshift camps and in desperate need of food and aid. Survivors have described horrific scenes of soldiers burning villages, looting homes and raping Rohingya women, before stabbing, shooting or beheading whole families in broad daylight.

The Myanmar government has rejected allegations of systematic atrocities against the Rohingya, and told the UN security council last week that “there is no ethnic cleansing and no genocide in Myanmar”.



Aung San Suu Kyi is to be stripped of the Freedom of the City of Oxford, an award she was given while living under house arrest, over her response over the humanitarian crisis. St Hugh’s, the Oxford college where she studied politics, philosophy and economics in the 1960s, has already removed her portrait from public display.

Geldof told the One Young World summit that young leaders will need to “engage in whole new structures and ideas” in order to “survive our century”.

“It is a seriously dangerous world and getting more so,” said Geldof. “Change can come from anywhere, it can be good or bad. But it is only good when it meets the needs of – and is balanced by – the requirements of society.”