Parting shot
journalists, he is speaking out of the boundary of the commission’s mandate.”
Some Burmese officials are working hard to help people in Rakhine, Richardson said, and he held out hope that the advisory panel might press the Government to push through his suggestion of an investigation of widespread reports that the military in Burma buried Rohingya victims in many mass graves.
Though he said members of the advisory board were generally “serious people that could be very helpful”, Richardson had tough words for the panel’s leader, Surakiart Sathirathai, a former Thai Foreign Minister.
“There’s no agenda, there’s no plan to address some of the issues relating to safety, to citizenship,” Richardson said. “I don’t want to be part of a whitewash, and I felt it best that I resign immediately.”
He also disparaged a trip on Wednesday by the panel to the border to see Burma’s preparations for a possible gradual repatriation of some Rohingya.
Bangladesh says it needs more time to prepare for the transfer, and the refugees are deeply sceptical, if not outright terrified, about returning.
There was, Richardson said of the trip, no plan to talk with Rakhine leaders, to talk to members of the Muslim community or to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Burma.
“It just seemed like a big photo-op, and I said I’m not going to be part of that,” Richardson said. “Before there is repatriation, there has to be monitors to ensure that that repatriation is properly done. There have to be human rights safeguards. There has to be a commitment, a path to citizenship. There has to be assurances of safety and freedom of movement, and so far there aren’t.”