Aung San Suu Kyi remains Myanmar\u2019s best hope for change, veteran US mediator Bill Richardson said on Friday, days after he got into a fight with the Nobel<\/p>\n
laureate and quit an international panel advising her government on the Rohingya crisis.<\/p>\n
Richardson said Suu Kyi \u2013 whom he described as a long-time friend \u2013 had developed a \u201csiege mentality\u201d in her position as Myanmar\u2019s State Counsellor, the<\/p>\n
country\u2019s civilian leader, but added that Western governments should continue to engage with her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe relationship with the West, with human rights groups, with the United Nations, with the international media is terrible,\u201d he told Reuters by phone from New<\/p>\n
Mexico on Friday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think Aung San Suu Kyi has brought this upon herself, the constant disparagement of the international community, which I think can be helpful to her \u2026<\/p>\n
She seems isolated. She doesn\u2019t travel much into the country. I think she\u2019s developed a classic bubble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Richardson said he resigned from the advisory board on Wednesday, during its first visit to troubled Rakhine State, saying it was conducting a \u201cwhitewash\u201d. Suu<\/p>\n
Kyi\u2019s office said on Thursday her government had asked Richardson to step down and accused him of pursuing \u201chis own agenda\u201d.<\/p>\n
Suu Kyi\u2019s government said on Friday it did not want discuss the details of the exchange between Suu Kyi and Richardson any further.<\/p>\n
Around 688,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled from Rakhine to Bangladesh in recent months to escape an army crackdown following insurgent attacks on<\/p>\n
security forces.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Myanmar military is to blame a lot and the only person that can turn them around, I believe, is Aung San Suu Kyi, and she should start doing that,\u201d said<\/p>\n
Richardson, a former US ambassador to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton who has also worked as a mediator with North Korea.<\/p>\n
Richardson said he had informed the US ambassador in Yangon and the State Department of his intention to resign but had not sought their guidance.<\/p>\n
Richardson said that before his trip to Myanmar, he spoke to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who visited the country in November. \u201cHe called me and gave<\/p>\n
me a briefing on his visit and that was all,\u201d he told Reuters in a separate television interview.<\/p>\n
A State Department spokesman said he could not immediately confirm details of Richardson\u2019s contacts.<\/p>\n
A statement on Thursday from the nine remaining members of the advisory board said they met this week \u201cwith open minds\u201d and rejected Richardson\u2019s criticism<\/p>\n
that he feared the panel would be used as \u201ca cheerleading squad\u201d.<\/p>\n
Richardson said Suu Kyi\u2019s response at a Monday night dinner was \u201cfurious\u201d when he brought up the case of two Reuters reporters, who were arrested on Dec.<\/p>\n
12 on suspicion of violating Myanmar\u2019s Official Secrets Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was very angry with me when I raised releasing the journalists, giving them a fair trial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was upset when I said there should be an investigation of the mass-graves issue, that they had to increase their international support for the treatment of<\/p>\n
the Rohingyas, the terrible refugee crisis. She exploded. She was very unhappy, and it shows that she didn\u2019t want to hear frank advice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her office said it would not be commenting further on the exchange.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe already published a statement and also the advisory board published a statement. The judge will decide whether the journalists committed the crime or not.<\/p>\n
It is Contempt of Court. Even in America, they wouldn\u2019t involve themselves in a case while the case is ongoing in a court hearing,\u201d said Zaw Htay, Suu Kyi\u2019s<\/p>\n
spokesman.<\/p>\n
Reporters Wa Lone, 31, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, had worked on Reuters coverage of the crisis in Rakhine.<\/p>\n
Richardson said it was important for Western governments, the United Nations and Suu Kyi to enter into a new dialogue \u201cto try to help each other, not to keep<\/p>\n
fighting each other\u201d before any thoughts of new sanctions on Myanmar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we don\u2019t want is to have Aung San Suu Kyi just listen to ASEAN countries, China or Russia. They need engagement with the West. We\u2019re all former<\/p>\n
friends. She needs to change, and perhaps the West needs to give her another chance and not impose sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Myanmar\u2019s armed forces have been accused by Rohingya witnesses and human rights activists of carrying out killings, rapes and arson in Rakhine in a<\/p>\n
campaign senior officials in the United Nations and United States have described as ethnic cleansing. Myanmar rejects that label and has denied nearly all the<\/p>\n
allegations.
\nBangladesh and Myanmar agreed earlier this month to complete the voluntary repatriation of all the refugees. The remaining members of the advisory board on<\/p>\n
Wednesday toured temporary camps the government has set up for returnees.<\/p>\n
Richardson said he did not believe conditions were yet right for the repatriation process to begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Aung San Suu Kyi remains Myanmar\u2019s best hope for change, veteran US mediator Bill Richardson said on Friday, days after he got into a fight with the Nobel laureate and quit an international panel advising her government on the Rohingya crisis. Richardson said Suu Kyi \u2013 whom he described as a long-time friend \u2013 had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20028,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20029,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20027\/revisions\/20029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}