Myanmar ethnic party snubs UN envoy

Myanmar: A powerful ethnic party in Myanmar has again rejected a request for a meeting from a top United Nations official who is visiting troubled Rakhine State to probe reports of rights violations against Rohingya Muslims.
Northern Rahkine has been under strict military lockdown since October 9 when a gang killed nine border police officials near the border with Bangladesh, leading to a clampdown that has left anywhere between 84 and 400 Rohingya dead.
An Arakan National Party (ANP) official confirmed that they refused a request from Yanghee Lee, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, to meet with party leaders on Friday evening, hours after she arrived in the state capital Sittwe. “We are not meeting her because we don’t believe she and her organization [the UN] have a will to resolve the issues fairly,” ANP joint secretary Ba Swe said.
“The issues will never be solved as long as they accept these Bengalis as members of this country’s ethnic groups,” Ba Swe said, using a term that suggests Rohingya are illegal immigrants from neighbouring Bangladesh.
As part of her 12-day visit to Myanmar, Lee will spend three days in Rakhine -- home to around 1.2 million stateless Rohingya, a minority that has suffered decades of poverty and repression and been denied basic rights such as citizenship and freedom of movement.
On Friday, she met Muslim community leaders during her visit to a Rohingya neighbourhood in Sittwe.