Mizzima.com/AFP—Apr 11
Myanmar’s junta on Tuesday slammed the UN’s “one-sided allegations” about its human rights record and said it had received no official communication regarding the recent appointment of a new UN special envoy to the conflict-torn country. The Southeast Asian nation has been in turmoil since the military seized power in February 2021, ending a brief democratic experiment and sparking clashes with ethnic rebel groups and anti-coup fighters. The junta has reacted with fury to attempts by the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc to establish dialogue between it and its opponents, whom it has vowed to “annihilate”. Last week the UN’s rights council adopted a resolution slamming “horrific and systematic human rights violations” in Myanmar. It also criticized the junta’s “stranglehold” on humanitarian assistance, which it said was exacerbating a crisis that has displaced more than 2.5 million people. That resolution “included unfounded and one-sided allegations,” the junta’s foreign affairs ministry said in a statement published in the Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper. “Therefore, Myanmar categorically rejects the resolution.”
The statement also said the UN had made “no official communication to Myanmar” regarding last week’s appointment of a new UN special envoy to the country. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed former Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop to the post, which has been vacant since the departure in June 2023 of Noeleen Heyzer. Read more at: https://eng.mizzima.com/2024/04/11/8885#google_vignette
