Former US President Jimmy Carter and two other former world leaders who are part of a group known as “The Elders” have wrapped up a visit to Myanmar with calls to address spiraling Buddhist-led violence against minority Muslims.
They said in a press release that “these senseless, destructive, repeated acts of brutality” could not be ignored.
But they also praised Myanmar’s transition from a half-century of military dictatorship to a budding democracy. They pointed to the release of thousands of political prisoners, cease-fire agreements with many of the country’s armed ethnic groups and an end to censorship.
Carter, president from 1977-81, was joined on the trip by Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland, and Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway.
