Veteran US diplomat Bill Richardson has resigned from an international panel set up by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to advise on the Rohingya crisis.- BBC News

25/1/2018

Rohingya crisis: US diplomat quits advisory panel

Ms Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 "for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights"

Veteran US diplomat Bill Richardson has resigned from an international panel set up by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi to advise on the Rohingya crisis.

He claimed the panel was a "whitewash" and accused Ms Suu Kyi of lacking "moral leadership" on the issue.

Mr Richardson, a long-time friend of Ms Suu Kyi, added she had been "furious" when he raised the case of two Reuters reporters on trial in Myanmar.

Myanmar has accused him of launching a "personal attack" on Ms Suu Kyi.

More than 650,000 Muslim Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh last year in the face of a military crackdown.

The military offensive that led to a mass exodus from Myanmar's northern Rakhine state has been described by the United Nations as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing" - something Myanmar denies.

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Mr Richardson, a former adviser to the Clinton administration, has known Ms Suu Kyi for decades, and visited the Nobel laureate while she was under house arrest in the 1990s.

He told Reuters he was resigning from the advisory board because it was a "whitewash" and he did not want to be part of a "cheerleading squad for the government".

Bill Richardson, a former governor of New Mexico, has sharply criticised Aung San Suu Kyi

He said he had got into an argument with Ms Su Kyi during a meeting on Monday after he raised the case of two Reuters reporters who are on trial for breaching the Official Secrets Act. The journalists were working on coverage of the Rohingya crisis at the time.

Ms Suu Kyi "exploded" at him when he mentioned the journalists, he told the New York Times.

"Her face was quivering, and if she had been a little closer to me, she might have hit me, she was so furious," Mr Richardson said.

Mr Richardson went on to say he had been "taken aback by the vigour" with which she had "disparaged" the media, the UN, human rights groups and the international community during three days of meetings.

And, on Ms Suu Kyi herself, he said: "She's not getting good advice from her team.

"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."

A Rohingya Muslim in Thankhali refugee camp in Bangladesh's Ukhia district on 24 January 2018Image copyrightAFP

Image caption

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims are currently in refugee camps in Bangladesh

A Myanmar government spokesman said Mr Richardson "should review himself over his personal attack against our State Counsellor".

Mr Richardson had raised the case of the reporters at an unrelated meeting about Rakhine, Zaw Htay said. "We feel sorry for his resignation due to the misunderstanding."

The Advisory Board for the Committee for Implementation of the Recommendations on Rakhine State was set up by Ms Suu Kyi's government last year.

Until Mr Richardson resigned, the board had 10 members, five of whom are from overseas.

One of those, former South African Defence Minister Roelof Meyer, travelled with the board's remaining members to Rakhine state on Wednesday.

He told Reuters the visit had been "very constructive", and said any suggestion the board was "just a rubber stamp or a voice on behalf of the government... would be completely untrue, unfair. We haven't done any recommendations so far."