Myanmar’s international Rohingya panel a whitewash!

A US diplomat has resigned from an international panel on Rohingya crisis terming it as "whitewash" and accused Aung San Suu Kyi of lacking "moral leadership".

Veteran diplomat Bill Richardson on Thursday stepped down from the panel set up by his long-term friend Myanmar leader Ms Suu Kyi.

Myanmar retaliated saying he should "review himself" over the "personal attack".

Richardson added that, according to BBC, Ms Suu Kyi had been "furious" when he raised the case of two reporters on trial in Myanmar.

He told Reuters he was resigning from the advisory board because it was a "whitewash" and he did not want to be part of a "cheerleading squad for the government".

The US diplomat was "alarmed by the lack of sincerity with which the critical issue of citizenship was discussed," he wrote in a statement.

The journalists were working on coverage of the Rohingya crisis at the time.

Ms Suu Kyi "exploded" at him when he mentioned the journalists, he told the New York Times.

"Her face was quivering, and if she had been a little closer to me, she might have hit me, she was so furious," Mr Richardson said.

Mr Richardson went on to say he had been "taken aback by the vigour" with which she had "disparaged" the media, the UN, human rights groups and the international community during three days of meetings.

The Advisory Board for the Committee for Implementation of the Recommendations on Rakhine State was set up by Ms Suu Kyi's government last year.