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YANGON, Myanmar: Authorities here lashed out at US
criticism of the isolated military-run state, accusing Washington of
using the United Nations to install a “puppet government” here.
The mudslinging in the New Light
of Myanmar newspaper, a government mouthpiece, followed the release
last week of a US State Department human rights report, which
singled out Myanmar as one of the world’s worst offenders.
“The attempt of the US was not
for promotion of human rights but for putting political pressure on
Myanmar,” the paper said.
“The US is attempting to use
the [UN] Security Council and the Human Rights Council to ensure a
dialogue to fulfill the wishes of the NLD and its cohorts in order
that it can install a puppet government in Myanmar,” it added.
The National League for Democracy
(NLD) party, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won landslide elections in
1990, but was not allowed to take office. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent
most of the last 20 years under house arrest.
Washington has driven efforts to
free the detained Nobel peace laureate and speed up democratic
reform in Myanmar, which has been under military rule since 1962.
However efforts have been
hampered by Myanmar allies Russia and China, who in January vetoed a
US-backed Security Council resolution condemning the junta for human
rights abuses.
The paper told people in Myanmar
not to worry about any US effort to bring Myanmar before the UN
Human Rights Council, calling such actions “incorrect and
unjust.”
--AFP
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