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 Suu Kyi of lacking "moral leadership" on the issue. Richardson, a former adviser to the Clinton administration, said: "the main reason I am resigning is that this advisory board is a whitewash". He told Reuters he did not want to be part of a "cheerleading squad for the government".
He said he had got into an argument with 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. Suu Kyi was "furious", he said, insisting that the case "was not part of the work of the advisory board".
Richardson went on to say he had been "taken aback by the vigour" with which the panel had "disparaged" the media, the UN, human rights groups and the international community during three days of meetings.
And, on Ms Suu Kyi herself - someone he said he had known since the 1980s - 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."
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