YANGON • United States diplomat Bill Richardson was accused yesterday of a "personal attack" on Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi after an excoriating takedown of the former darling of the global rights community as he resigned from a panel on the Rohingya crisis.
One-time Suu Kyi ally Richardson was one of five foreign members handpicked by Myanmar's civilian leader to serve on the committee.
But after a three-day visit to Myanmar, Mr Richardson struck out at his hosts, saying he could not in "good conscience" sit on a panel he feared would only "whitewash" the causes of the Rohingya crisis.
He tore into Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi for an "absence of moral leadership" over Rakhine and described her "furious response" to his calls to free two Reuters journalists arrested while covering the crisis.
A Myanmar government spokesman hit back yesterday, accusing former New Mexico governor Richardson of overstepping the mark in his stinging resignation letter.
"He should review himself over his personal attack against our State Counsellor," government spokesman Zaw Htay said, referring to Ms Suu Kyi's official title.
"We understand his emotion about the two Reuters correspondents. However, he needs to understand, rather than blame the Myanmar nation and the State Counsellor." Mr Zaw Htay said the issue of the arrests was beyond Mr Richardson's mandate and he should not have brought it up with Ms Suu Kyi.
The heated discussion left the Myanmar leader "quivering" with rage, Mr Richardson told the New York Times. "If she had been a little closer to me, she might have hit me, she was so furious," the paper quoted Mr Richardson as saying.
The Reuters journalists, Myanmar nationals Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, face a possible 14 years in prison under the Official Secrets Act for allegedly possessing classified documents that they said were given to them by two policemen.
They are waiting to hear whether they will be granted bail in a case that could take months to even reach trial. They had been reporting on the crisis in Rakhine, where Myanmar troops are accused of waging a vicious ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya.
Nearly 690,000 Rohingya have fled the brutal military operation for Bangladesh since last August, bringing with them testimonies of murder, rape and arson at the hands of troops and vigilante mobs.
Mr Richardson joined the Myanmar board as a private citizen, but the US State Department said Washington shared many of his concerns. After his trip, the diplomat said he was shocked by the panel members' disparagement of the media, the United Nations, human rights groups and the international community.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
