WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Canadian-Israeli lobbyist hired by the Myanmar junta said on Saturday that the generals wanted to leave politics after the coup and seek to improve relations with the United States and distance themselves from China.
Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who has previously represented Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Sudan’s military rulers, said Myanmar’s generals also want to repatriate the Rohingya Muslims who fled to neighboring Bangladesh.
The United Nations says more than 50 protesters have been killed since the February 1 coup, when the military overthrew and detained elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy party won the polls in November with an overwhelming victory.
On Friday, a UN special envoy asked the Security Council to take action against the junta for the death of protesters.
In a telephone interview, Ben-Menashe said that he and his company Dickens & Madson Canada were hired by the generals of Myanmar to help communicate with the United States and other countries that he said “misunderstood” them.
He said Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar since 2016, had come too close to China for the taste of generals.
“There is a real impulse 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 Chinese puppets.”
President Joe Biden’s administration denounced the coup and imposed sanctions on the army and the companies it controls. A US State Department official declined to comment.
Ben-Menashe said he spoke of South Korea after a visit to Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, where he signed an agreement with the junta’s defense minister, General Mya Tun Oo. He said he would receive an undisclosed fee if sanctions on the military were lifted.
A military government spokesman did not respond to calls seeking comment on Saturday.
Ben-Menashe said he was tasked with contacting Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to obtain their support for a plan to repatriate the Rohingya, a Muslim minority. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled military attacks in 2016 and 2017, in which soldiers indiscriminately killed, raped women and set fire to houses, according to a UN investigation mission.
“Basically, it is trying to get some funding for the return of what they call Bengali,” said Ben-Menashe, using a term that some use in Myanmar for the Rohingya, implying that they are not from the country.
Hundreds of thousands of people protested in almost every city in Myanmar for weeks demanding the release of Suu Kyi and respect for the results of the November elections, which the military says was marked by fraud.
Ben-Menashe said the board could prove that the vote was rigged and that ethnic minorities were prevented from voting, but did not provide evidence. Election observers said there were no major irregularities.
He said that in his two visits to the country since the coup, “the disturbances were not so widespread” and the protest movement was not supported by the majority of the people of Myanmar.
Ben-Menashe said the police were handling the protests, not the military, despite photos and videos of armed soldiers at the demonstrations. He argued that the military was in a better position to oversee the return to democracy after the coup he staged.
“They want to get out of politics completely,” he said, “but it is a process.”
Simon Lewis reporting; Edition of Daniel Wallis