YANGON — Delivering an unusual public rebuke, former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico resigned on Wednesday (Jan 24) from a Myanmar advisory board on the Rohingya crisis, calling it a pro-government “cheerleading squad” and chastising the country’s de facto leader, 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 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 neighbouring 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 former 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 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 Mr 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.”

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.”

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

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

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.”

Mr Richardson also toldThe Associated Press in an interview that he was “very unhappy and distressed” by Ms Suu Kyi’s heated reaction to his plea that the two detained Reuters journalists “be treated fairly and rapidly.”

“That brought almost an explosion on her part, saying there were issues related to the official secrecies act, that that was not my charter as a member of the advisory board,” Mr Richardson said. “It was a very heated exchange that we had.”

Mr Surakiart and Ms Suu Kyi could not immediately be reached for comment.

A spokesman for Myanmar’s government, Zaw Htay, was quoted by AP as saying: "The reason why we formed the advisory commission was because we hoped that the team will give us constructive support and advice. We are sorry that Bill Richardson is releasing a statement and resigned from the commission, but that, of course, is out of our control."

The spokesman added: “The advisory commission is only to advise on the Rakhine issue. The arrest of the two Reuters journalists has nothing to do with the mandate of the commission or Rakhine issue. “When he talks about the Reuters journalists, he is speaking out of the boundary of the commission’s mandate.” 

The departure of Mr Richardson could deeply damage the credibility of the advisory board.

It also could further stain the reputation of Ms 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 criticised what they called Mr Suu Kyi’s indifferent response to the suffering of the Rohingya, who are widely despised among Myanmar’s predominantly Buddhist population.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert called Mr Richardson’s decision to resign from the board and his reasons for doing so “cause for concern”, but noted he had been acting as a private citizen in joining the board and visiting Myanmar.

”Ultimately, the Burmese government and military have the authority to determine whether the Advisory Board will succeed,“ Ms Nauert said. 

In his interview with AP, Mr Richardson also disparaged a trip Wednesday by the panel to the border to see Myanmar’s preparations for a possible gradual repatriation of some Rohingya, many of whom remain deeply sceptical, if not outright terrified, about returning to Rakhine.

There was, Mr Richardson said of the trip, no plan to talk with Rakhine leaders, to talk to members of the Muslim community or to visit Rohingya refugee camps in Myanmar.

“It just seemed like a big photo-op, and I said I’m not going to be part of that,” Mr Richardson said. “Before there is repatriation, there has to be monitors to ensure that that repatriation is properly done. There have to be human rights safeguards. There has to be a commitment, a path to citizenship. There has to be assurances of safety and freedom of movement, and so far there aren’t.” AGENCIES