Envoy quits Rohingya panel over ‘whitewash’
Board makes first visit to crisis-hit Rakhine
YANGON: Veteran US 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”.
Mr Richardson, a former Clinton administration cabinet member, quit as the 10-member advisory board was making its first visit to western 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,” Mr Richardson said in an interview, adding he did not want to be part of “a cheerleading squad for the government”.
Mr Richardson said he got into an argument with Ms 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 Officials Secrets Act.
He said Ms 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.
Ms Suu Kyi’s spokesman, Zaw Htay, said yesterday the Advisory Board was meeting about the “Rakhine issue”.
“[Mr Richardson] talked on a topic outside the agenda of the meetings and went beyond the framework,” Zaw Htay said. “We feel sorry for his resignation due to the misunderstanding.”
Reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, had worked on Reuters coverage of the crisis in Rakhine, from where 688,000 Rohingya have fled an army crackdown on insurgents since late August, according to estimates by the United Nations.
They were detained on Dec 12 after they had been invited to meet police officers over dinner in Yangon. The government has cited police as saying they were arrested for possessing secret documents relating to the security situation in Rakhine.
US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called Richardson’s decision to resign from the board and his reasons for doing so “cause for concern”, but noted he had been acting as a private citizen in joining the board and visiting Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
“Ultimately, the Burmese government and military have the authority to determine whether the Advisory Board will succeed,” Ms Nauert said.
“The United States has made clear that we are willing to support good faith efforts to implement the Annan Commission recommendations.”
The Advisory Board for the Committee for Implementation of the Recommendations on Rakhine State was set up by Myanmar last year, to advise on enacting the findings of an earlier commission headed by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
The armed forces have been accused by Rohingya witnesses and human rights activists of carrying out killings, rapes and arson in a campaign senior officials in the United Nations and US have described as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar rejects that label and has denied nearly all the allegations.
Mr Richardson said he was also “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,” Mr Richardson said of Ms Suu Kyi, whom he said he has 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.”