U.s. Troubleshooter Quits Rohingya Panel And Rebukes Myanmar’S Leader

[Coss]

Delivering an unusual public rebuke, former Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico resigned Wednesday from a Myanmar advisory board on the Rohingya crisis, calling it a pro-government “cheerleading squad†and chastising the country’s de facto leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whom he has long considered a friend.

 

In a statement from Yangon, Myanmar, where he has been visiting, Mr. Richardson also said he was “extremely upset†at what he described as Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s hostile reaction to his efforts aimed at freeing two Reuters journalists seized more than a month ago while reporting on the Rohingya crisis.

 

 

 

 

“Freedom of the press to report the facts is a fundamental bedrock of democracy,†Mr. Richardson said in the statement.

 

The journalists, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, could face 14-year prison terms under the country’s Official Secrets Act because of their work on the military’s crackdown on Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority in Rakhine State.

 

By some estimates, nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled to squalid camps in neighboring Bangladesh in recent months because of the crackdown, which human rights groups have described as a genocidal campaign of killings and rapes.

 

Mr. Richardson, a former United Nations ambassador under President Bill Clinton, has a reputation as a diplomatic troubleshooter. He said last week en route to Myanmar that he intended to secure the release of the journalists during his visit.

 

He had been chosen by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi to sit on a 10-member board created to advise on how to carry out the recommendations of an earlier commission led by Kofi Annan, a former United Nations secretary general, on resolving the turmoil in Rakhine.

 

After three days of talks and meetings with other members of the advisory board, Mr. Richardson said in his statement, it had “become clear that I cannot in good conscience serve in this role.â€

 

The advisory board, he said, was “likely to become a cheerleading squad for government policy as opposed to proposing genuine policy changes that are desperately needed to assure peace, stability and development in Rakhine State.â€

 

Mr. Richardson said he had been “taken aback†by how Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and other board members had disparaged human rights groups, the United Nations and international media organizations over how the Rohingya disaster had been presented to the world.

 

He was particularly critical of the advisory board’s chairman, Surakiart Sathirathai, a Thai politician, who Mr. Richardson said had sought to “avoid the real issues at the risk of confronting our Myanmar hosts.â€

 

The board’s agenda, Mr. Richardson said, was “devoid of any meaningful engagement with the local communities in Rakhine, whose people the advisory board is meant to serve.â€

 

Mr. Surakiart and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi could not immediately be reached for comment. A spokesman for Myanmar’s government, Zaw Htay, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying: “We are sorry that Bill Richardson is releasing a statement and resigned from the commission but that, of course, is out of our control.â€

 

The departure of Mr. Richardson could deeply damage the credibility of the advisory board. It also could further stain the reputation of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner who had been imprisoned for many years for standing up to Myanmar’s military in a campaign for democracy.

 

Many international leaders have criticized what they called Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s indifferent response to the suffering of the Rohingya, who are widely despised among Myanmar’s predominantly Buddhist population.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/24/world/asia/bill-richardson-myanmar-rohingya.html?mtrref=undefined