Yangon: Myanmar on Friday rejected a report calling for the UN Security Council to intervene in the Asian nation and said claims about human rights abuses by the military regime were exaggerated.

The report, from former Czech president Vaclav Havel and retired South African archbishop Desmond Tutu, said Myanmar was “far worse” than seven other nations, including Afghanistan and Rwanda, where the UN had taken action.

“There is no basis whatsoever to its claims,” the foreign ministry of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, said in a statement.

The ministry said allegations of rape, forced labour, child soldiers, refugees and forced relocations were “vast exaggerations or mere outright distortions,” and that the report was an attempt to discredit the ruling junta.

“The truth is that the government does not condone human rights violations and is in fact the guarantor of human rights in the country,” it said.

The report was “based on wrong information by a few remaining insurgents and foreign-funded expatriates who are now fearful that they will soon be irrelevant when Myanmar crosses the threshold to a new era,” it said.

Havel and Tutu recommended that the UN Security Council adopt a resolution compelling Myanmar to work with Secretary General Kofi Annan to carry out a national reconciliation plan to achieve a democratically elected government.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. Although the party of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi won elections in 1990, it was never allowed to govern and many of its officials have been detained.

The foreign ministry statement made no mention of a report by a UN special envoy on Thursday that called for the release “all 1,100 political prisoners” being held by the regime.

The envoy, UN human rights special rapporteur Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, has not been allowed into Myanmar for nearly two years.