Myanmar’s transition from military rule has not been as fast as hoped and the government is “backsliding” on some reforms, US President Barack Obama said in an interview published on Wednesday, hours before he was due to visit the country.
Obama cited the persecution of members of the ethnic Rohingya Muslim minority, a crackdown on journalists and reports of abuses in ethnic minority areas where autonomy-seeking insurgents have operated for decades.
“Even as there has been some progress on the political and economic fronts, in other areas there has been a slowdown and backsliding in reforms,” Obama told the Irrawaddy, a website and magazine that was published in neighboring Thailand while the generals ran Myanmar, which is also know as Burma.
“In addition to restrictions on freedom of the press, we continue to see violations of basic human rights and abuses in the country’s ethnic areas, including reports of extrajudicial killings, rape and forced labor. These kinds of abuses represent the painful history that so many people in Burma want to move beyond.”
