MANILA, Philippines — After the Philippines disassociated from the United Nations Human Rights Council’s call for Myanmar to free Aung San Suu Kyi, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. yesterday accused the rights body of deliberately misinterpreting his statement calling for “a complete restoration of the status quo ante” with the leader reinstalled in power.
In a tweet, Locsin wrote: “@UNGeneva deliberately misinterpreted the Philippine statement calling for a complete restoration of the status quo ANTE with Suu Kyi back in her former power and influence, the Army in its protective role, the people enjoying again the measure of freedom she achieved. Won’t bow to the hypocrites.”
“I won’t have the Geneva hypocrites dictate on our ‘nuanced’ approach to work for the possible rather than the self-satisfying impossibility of whites,” he said.
The Philippines, according to Locsin, joined China, Russia, Venezuela and Bolivia in disassociating itself from the UN Human Rights Council consensus that adopted the resolution but without taking a vote.
“I don’t want her just free to make the whites feel good she’s out and useless except as an object of Western pity; but free and back in the position of power and influence taken from her and her party which swept the elections; the position the West first stripped her of,” Locsin said.
Myanmar’s military took control of the country in a coup and declared a state of emergency. It detained Suu Kyi and other senior government leaders and voided her party’s landslide election victory last November.
Locsin said the Philippines has been supportive of Myanmar’s progress toward a fuller democracy, cognizant of the Army’s role in preserving its territorial integrity and national security, as well as the unifying role of Suu Kyi in the history of the country and the Army her father founded.
He stressed that “the realization of this democratic process can only be achieved through the complete restoration of the status quo ante.”
In a statement, the Department of Foreign Affairs said that while it backed Myanmar’s progress toward democracy, the Philippines believed in its neighbor’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity.”