WASHINGTON (Reuters) – An Israeli-Canadian lobbyist hired by the Myanmar junta said on Saturday that after their coup, the generals are eager to leave politics and try to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China.
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence official who previously represented Robert Mugabe and Sudan’s military rulers from Zimbabwe, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate Rohingya Muslims who have fled to neighboring Bangladesh.
The United Nations says more than 50 protesters have been killed since the Feb. 1 coup when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy won polls in November by a landslide.
On Friday, a UN special envoy urged the Security Council to take action against the junta for the murder of protesters.
In a telephone interview, Ben-Menashe said he and his firm Dickens & Madson Canada had been hired by Myanmar’s generals to help communicate with the United States and other countries he said he had “misunderstood”.
He said Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s de facto leader since 2016, had grown too close to China for the generals’ liking.
“There is a real pressure to move towards the West and the United States, instead of trying to get closer to the Chinese,” said Ben-Menashe. “They don’t want to be a Chinese puppet.”
President Joe Biden’s government has denounced the coup and imposed sanctions on the military and the companies it controls. A US State Department official declined to comment.
Ben-Menashe said he spoke from South Korea after visiting Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, where he signed an agreement with the junta’s defense minister, General Mya Tun Oo. He said he would receive undisclosed compensation if sanctions against the military are lifted.
A spokesman for the military government did not respond to the call for comment on Saturday.
Ben-Menashe said he had been tasked with contacting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to get their support for a plan to repatriate the Rohingya, a Muslim minority. According to a UN fact-finding mission, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled from military attacks in 2016 and 2017 in which soldiers killed indiscriminately, raped women and burned houses.
“It is actually they are trying to get some money for the return of what they call the Bengals,” said Ben-Menashe, using a term some in Myanmar use for the Rohingya to indicate that they are not from the country. .
Hundreds of thousands of people protested in nearly every city and town in Myanmar for weeks, demanding the release of Suu Kyi and respect for the results of the November elections, which the military said were marred by fraud.
Ben-Menashe said the junta could prove the vote was falsified and that ethnic minorities could not vote, but provided no evidence. Election observers have said there were no major irregularities.
He said that during his two visits to the country since the coup, “the disturbances have not been as widespread” and that the protest movement has not been supported by most people from Myanmar.
Ben-Menashe said the police were handling protests, not the military, despite photos and video footage of armed soldiers at the demonstrations. He argued that the military was best placed to enforce a return to democracy after the coup it had staged.
“They want to get out of politics completely,” he said, “but it’s a process.”
Reporting by Simon Lewis; Editing by Daniel Wallis