U.S. ENVOY QUITS ‘WHITEWASH’ PANEL
Suu Kyi lacks moral leadership, claims Richardson
VETERAN United States diplomat Bill Richardson has resigned from an international panel set up by Myanmar to advise on the Rohingya crisis, saying it was conducting a “whitewash” and accusing the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, of lacking “moral leadership”.
Richardson, a former Clinton administration cabinet member, quit as the 10member advisory board was making its first visit to Rakhine State, from where nearly 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled in recent months.
“The main reason I am resigning is that this advisory board is a whitewash,” he said in an interview, adding that he did not want to be part of “a cheerleading squad for the government”.
Richardson said he got into an argument with Suu Kyi during a meeting on Monday with other members of the board, when he brought up the case of two Reuters reporters who are on trial accused of breaching the country’s Official Secrets Act.
He said Suu Kyi’s response was “furious”, saying the case of the reporters “was not part of the work of the advisory board”.
The argument continued at a dinner later that evening, the former New Mexico governor said.
Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, had said the board was meeting about the “Rakhine issue”.
“(Richardson) talked on a topic outside the agenda of the meetings and went beyond the framework,” he said. “We feel sorry for his resignation due to the misunderstanding.”
Reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, who worked on Reuters coverage of the crisis in Rakhine, were detained on Dec 12. The government cited police as saying they were arrested for possessing secret documents on the security situation in Rakhine.
Richardson said he was “taken aback by the vigour with which the media, the United Nations, human rights groups and in general the international community were disparaged” during the last three days of meetings the board held with Myanmar officials.
“She’s not getting good advice from her team,” he said of Suu Kyi, whom he said he had known since the 1980s. “I like her enormously and respect her. But, she has not shown moral leadership on the Rakhine issue and the allegations made, and I regret that.”
Suu Kyi’s national security adviser, Thaung Tun, said he escorted other board members on a trip to Rakhine on Wednesday, but Richardson had not taken part.
“He said he was unhappy about the situation, but I’m not sure what he was unhappy about. This is just the initial stage, this is the start of a year of business, so I don’t know what happened to make him feel like that.”