Irrawaddy-Aug 4
The Myanmar junta’s rhetoric against Timor Leste is reaching hysterical pitch as the island state’s accession to ASEAN looms. The latest blast came from the regime mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar, which accused Timor Leste’s leaders of “cavort[ing] with terrorists who have butchered and seek to kill Myanmar citizens further”—an apparent reference to Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta’s past contact with Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government (NUG) of elected leaders who were ousted in the 2021 coup. Ramos-Horta “disgustingly validated representatives of a group of terrorist grifters and philanderers now sliding into irrelevance with each passing day,” the paper’s excitable columnist Sitt Naing wrote. The piece appeared a week after a visit from Olandino Ruide Andrade, the chargé d’affaires at the Embassy of Timor-Leste, to Deputy Foreign Minister Ko Ko Kyaw in Naypyitaw. There the Timorese diplomat “expressed hope for support from ASEAN member states in the country’s endeavor towards full membership in the regional bloc,” junta media said. At an ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in July, the Myanmar regime officially informed Malaysia, the current chair, that it will not support Timor Leste’s accession in October because it “failed to adhere to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter.” The junta also urged Dili to “refrain” from engaging with entities that are explicitly opposed to or in conflict with the positions of ASEAN member states. “Should Timor Leste be admitted, the country will only use its membership as a pulpit to take swipes at Myanmar and its interests, flagrantly disregarding the ASEAN charter’s non-interference provisions simply because its leadership have been bred and taught that they can act with impunity for being a Western neoliberal attack mouthpiece,” Sitt Naing fumed in the column. Junta officials have been barred from ASEAN summits since the 2021 coup, except for the odd nominally “non-political” representatives, i.e. civil servants. The Myanmar junta’s rhetoric against Timor Leste is reaching hysterical pitch as the island state’s accession to ASEAN looms. Read more at: https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/myanmars-crisis-the-world/myanmar-junta-ramps-up-rhetoric-against-timor-leste.html
