BURMA’S MILITARY rulers were described as a “ruthless regime” last night by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin who said the junta had “turned its back on its people as it relentlessly pursues its desire for power and its greed for the country’s riches”.
Mr Martin was speaking in Iveagh House at the launch of a human rights report entitled Bullets in the Alms Bowl, prepared by the Burmese government-in-exile and funded by Irish Aid, the development division of the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Commenting on the report, Mr Martin said: “It makes dismaying reading but, for those familiar with the history of Burma’s military junta, the report’s searing profile of this ruthless regime comes as little surprise.”
He said the Burmese junta had “transformed a country that was once the rice bowl of Asia, endowed with a wealth of natural resources, into one where the majority of people live in abject poverty”.