The Myanmar junta's rhetoric against Timor Leste is reaching hysterical pitch as the island state's accession to ASEAN looms.
The latest blast came from the regime mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar, which accused Timor Leste's leaders of cavort[ing] with terrorists who have butchered and seek to kill Myanmar citizens further an apparent reference to Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta's past contact with Myanmar's parallel National Unity Government (NUG) of elected leaders who were ousted in the 2021 coup.
Ramos-Horta "disgustingly validated representatives of a group of terrorist grifters and philanderers now sliding into irrelevance with each passing day, the paper's excitable" columnist Sitt Naing wrote.
The piece appeared a week after a visit from Olandino Ruide Andrade, the charg d affaires at the Embassy of Timor-Leste, to Deputy Foreign Minister Ko Ko Kyaw in Naypyitaw.
There the Timorese diplomat "expressed hope for support from ASEAN member states in the country's endeavor towards full membership in the regional bloc", junta media said.
The columnist denounced the envoy's "audacity" as breathtaking.
At an ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in July, the Myanmar regime officially informed Malaysia, the current chair, that it will not support Timor Leste's accession in October because "it failed to adhere to the principle of non-interference in internal affairs as enshrined in the ASEAN Charter".
The junta also urged Dili to "refrain" from engaging with entities that are explicitly opposed to or in conflict with the positions of ASEAN member states.
"Should Timor Leste be admitted, the country will only use its membership as a pulpit to take swipes at Myanmar and its interests, flagrantly disregarding the ASEAN charter's non-interference provisions simply because its leadership have been bred and taught that they can act with impunity for being a Western neoliberal attack mouthpiece", Sitt Naing fumed in the column. "Myanmar is under no obligation to entertain this delusion".
Long-standing enmity
In July 2023, Dili officially invited NUG officials to the swearing-in of the new Timorese government.
And in an address at the UN in 2022, Ramos-Horta noted that Western countries started off on high moral ground in confronting Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but may end up losing the support of the developing world due to the glaring contrast in their response to the wars elsewhere.
The Myanmar people, he said, feel abandoned, betrayed, by the so-called international community as a result of its muted reaction to the war waged against the people of Myanmar.
Last month, Ramos-Horta dismissed Myanmar's opposition to Tior's accession as irrelevant.
The formal decision for Timor-Leste to join ASEAN has already been made and is reflected in the final communiqu, he added.
The accession ceremony is scheduled for the ASEAN Summit in October.
Myanmar joined ASEAN under the previous military regime, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), despite strong reservations from the U.S., EU, and some member countries in Southeast Asia. Malaysia also happened to be the chair at the time.
Junta officials have been barred from ASEAN summits since the 2021 coup, except for the odd nominally non-political representatives, i.e. civil servants.