Obama sending Clinton to repressive Myanmar
By BEN FELLER and ERICA WERNER | AP – 2 hrs 53 mins ago
BALI, Indonesia (AP) — Seizing an opportunity for historic progress in repressive Myanmar, President Barack Obama is dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to the long-isolated nation next month in an attempt to accelerate fledgling reforms.
The move is the most dramatic sign yet of an evolving relationship between the United States and Myanmar, also known as Burma, which has suffered under brutal military rule for decades. Obama said Friday there had been "flickers of progress" since new civilian leadership took power in March.
"If Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America," Obama said as he announced Clinton's trip while on a diplomatic mission to southeast Asia.
Clinton will be the first U.S. secretary of state to visit Myanmar in more than 50 years.
In exploring a breakthrough engagement with Myanmar, Obama first sought assurances of support from democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She spent 15 years under house arrest by the nation's former military dictators but is now in talks with the civilian government about reforming the country.
The two spoke by phone on Thursday night while Obama was flying to Bali on Air Force One.
By sending in his chief diplomat, Obama is taking a calculated political risk in a place where repression is still common. He warned that if the country fails to commit to a true opening of its society, it will continue to face sanctions and isolation. But he said that the current environment is a rare opening that could help millions of people "and that possibility is too important to ignore."
Myanmar is subject to wide-ranging trade, economic and political sanctions from the U.S. and other Western nations, enforced in response to brutal crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters in 1988 and 2007 and its refusal to hand power to Suu Kyi's party after the 1990 elections.
Clinton said that while there may be an opening for a democracy push in Myanmar, the U.S. was proceeding cautiously.
"We're not ending sanctions. We're not making any abrupt changes," she said during an interview with Fox News. "We have to do some more fact-finding and that's part of my trip."
Suu Kyi's lawyer, Nyan Win, welcomed news of Clinton's visit.
"It is time for the U.S. to make such a high-level visit. This is going to be a very crucial visit," Win said.
Senior Obama administration officials said the U.S. wants to see a number of actions from Myanmar, including the release of more political prisoners; serious internal domestic
diplomacy between the government and ethnic groups, some of which have been in civil war for decades; and further assurances with regards to interactions with North Korea.
The administration's policy toward Myanmar has focused on punishments and incentives to get the country's former military rulers to improve dire human rights conditions. The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Myanmar but made clear it was open to better relations if the situation changed.
Myanmar's nominally civilian government has declared its intention to liberalize the hardline policies of the junta that preceded it. It has taken some initial steps, such as easing censorship, legalizing labor unions, suspending an unpopular, China-backed dam project, and working with Suu Kyi.
Officials said Clinton would travel to Myanmar Dec. 1, making stops in Yangon and Naypyitaw.
A U.S. opening with Myanmar would also contribute to Obama's goals of rebalancing power in the region, as Burma's military leaders for long had close ties to China.
Beijing has poured billions of dollars of investment into Myanmar to operate mines, extract timber and build oil and gas pipelines. China has also been a staunch supporter of the country's politically isolated government and is Myanmar's second-biggest trading partner after Thailand.
Administration officials stressed that the new engagement with Myanmar was not about China. They said the Obama administration consulted with China about the move and said they expected China to be supportive. They argued that China wants to see a stable Burma on its borders, so that it doesn't risk problems with refugees or other results of political instability.
Human rights groups welcomed Obama's announcement as an opportunity to compel further reforms.
"We've been arguing a long time that political engagement and political pressure are not mutually exclusive," Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Southeast Asia researcher, told The Associated Press, adding that Clinton "should not miss the opportunity in this historic visit to pressure the government and speak very clearly that the human rights violations taking place there need to stop."
Elaine Pearson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the Burmese government must realize that a visit by Clinton "puts them on notice, not lets them off the hook for their continually atrocious human rights record."
Obama was to see Burma's president during the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, that brought him to Bali. The two have met before, at an ASEAN meeting in Singapore, when Thein Sein was prime minister.
ASEAN announced Friday that Myanmar would chair the regional bloc in 2014, a significant perch that Myanmar was forced to skip in 2006 because of intense criticism of its rights record.
Obama attended a meeting Friday afternoon with the heads of ASEAN, whose 10 members include host Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The group will expand for the East Asia Summit, a forum that also counts China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the U.S. as members.
The president held one-on-one meetings on the sidelines of the summit with leaders from Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. Administration officials said Obama discussed the issue of Myanmar in his meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III.
Earlier, in a move promoting American trade, Obama presided over a deal that will send Boeing planes to an Indonesian company and create jobs back home, underscoring the value of the lucrative Asia-Pacific market to a president needing some good economic news.
Obama stood watch as executives of Boeing and Lion Air, a private carrier in Indonesia, signed a deal that amounts to Boeing's largest commercial plane order. Lion Air ordered 230 airplanes, and the White House said it would support tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S.
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Suu Kyi's party to register for Myanmar elections
By AYE AYE WIN | AP – 29 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's main opposition party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi decided Friday to rejoin politics and register for future elections, signaling its confidence in recent reforms by the military-aligned government.
The National League for Democracy party "has unanimously decided to reregister as a political party ... and will run in the elections," it said in a statement issued at the end of a meeting of senior members from across the country.
Some joyous members broke into a dance as the announcement was made.
"What we are doing now involves a lot of risk but it is time to take the risk because in politics there is no 100 percent assurance of success," Suu Kyi told them.
Earlier, member after member, including Suu Kyi, spoke out in favor of joining the political arena because of reforms initiated by the nominally civilian but military-aligned government, which have drawn cautious approval from even its most bitter critic, the United States.
President Barack Obama announced Friday that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would visit early next month — the first such trip in more than a half-century — after what he said were "flickers of progress" in Myanmar.
The NLD refused to register last year because of a restriction that would have prevented Suu Kyi from running. The restriction was lifted this year by the new government that took office following the November 2010 elections held by the long-ruling military junta as part of its promise to restore democracy and relinquish power.
"Personally I am for re-registration," Suu Kyi said in her speech to the delegates at the party headquarters in Yangon.
Any party that registers itself is required to run for at least three seats in the still-unscheduled by-elections for 48 vacant seats in Parliament. The legislature comprises 224 members in the upper house and 440 members in the lower house.
"Instead of participating in three seats in the by-elections, I would prefer to take part in all seats," Suu Kyi said. It would be the first electoral test of the NLD's popularity — and that of Suu Kyi — in more than two decades.
It is likely that Suu Kyi would run for office, said NLD spokesman Nyan Win. He said the party will file registration papers with the Election Commission in the capital, Naypyitaw, "as soon as possible."
"Some party members are concerned that my dignity will be affected if I run for the election," Suu Kyi told her colleagues. "If one is engaged in politics, one has to do what is necessary. If I feel that I should take part in elections, I will participate."
She cautioned that "the road ahead is full of difficulties and the road to democracy is endless."
The NLD's refusal to register last year was mainly because of an election law that required political parties to expel members who have been incarcerated. The clause appeared to target Suu Kyi, who was then under house arrest by the military regime. The NLD subsequently boycotted the elections.
However, Myanmar's new civilian government, headed by a former army officer who was prime minister in the junta, has shown a willingness to deal with Suu Kyi. It also has lifted some restrictions on the Internet, legalized unions and scrapped an unpopular dam project.
Bringing Suu Kyi's party back into the fold would give the government greater legitimacy at home and abroad.
"The NLD has to reregister if the party wants to join the political arena. The political climate has changed compared to 2010 and we have to make a practical decision," said Aung Myo, an NLD member from Sagaing region.
The NLD overwhelmingly won a 1990 general election, but the junta refused to honor the results. The military regime kept Suu Kyi under house arrest during different periods for a total of 15 years. She was released just after last year's elections and is now free to move about and meet people. The government also continues to hold hundreds of political prisoners although there are moves to free many of them.The party's decision Friday to re-enter the election fray was met with qualified support from some exiled pro-democracy activists.
Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Thailand-based Forum for Democracy in Burma, said it is more important that a dialogue between Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein continues.
He said such talks should seek substantive results, such as the release of all political prisoners and an end to army attacks in ethnic minority areas, where the government has long battled groups seeking greater autonomy.
He warned that Thein Sein may not have enough power to combat others in Myanmar's ruling circles who oppose reforms, and it was uncertain whether Suu Kyi's party can achieve change in Parliament, where the military and its allies hold a large majority.
Maung Zarni, a longtime exiled activist who is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics, cautioned that the pro-military tilt in Parliament "doesn't give much room for political maneuverings."
Suu Kyi told her colleagues that the party will continue to work for the release of political prisoners, the end of ethnic strife and a strengthening of the rule of law.
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Obama opens door to new U.S. ties with Myanmar
By Laura MacInnis and Caren Ban | Reuters – 10 hrs ago
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday he saw "flickers of progress" in Myanmar, pledged to send his secretary of state to the isolated country and promised new ties if it pursued democratic reforms.
Obama, on the Indonesian island of Bali to attend a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, said he had spoken for the first time with Nobel laureate and democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. He said he was sending Secretary of State Hillary Clinton next month to the country, also known as Burma.
He said the release of political prisoners and loosening of media restrictions, as well as Suu Kyi's release last year from house arrest, were "the most important steps toward reform in Burma that we've seen in years."
"We want to seize what could be a historic opportunity for progress and make it clear that if Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America," Obama said.
Washington has gradually tightened sanctions on Myanmar, now ruled by a civilian government after an election last year held with the main purpose of handing over power after nearly five decades of military rule.
Many Western governments have expressed doubts that the new civilian authority is committed to democratic change and has embarked on a different path from its military predecessors.
Obama warned that if Myanmar did not move toward more openness, it would "continue to face sanctions and isolation."
A U.S. official said Obama had spoken to Suu Kyi from Air Force One on his way to Indonesia on Thursday evening.
They reviewed progress made in Myanmar since her release last year and Obama said she supported more American engagement in the isolated Southeast Asian nation.
In an address to the Australian parliament on Thursday, Obama said Myanmar had opened a dialogue on reform, but had to do more to improve human rights.
Myanmar's new civilian rulers released about 230 political prisoners last month and a senior official from the country's home ministry said Wednesday that authorities were ready to proceed with further releases of activists.
Southeast Asian nations endorsed Myanmar Thursday for the chairmanship of its regional grouping in 2014, gambling that the isolated country can stick to reforms begun this year that could lead it out of half a century of isolation.
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Japan steps closer to full-fledged aid to Myanmar
By Yoko Nishikawa
NUSA DUA, Indonesia | Fri Nov 18, 2011 9:28am EST
(Reuters) - Japan told Myanmar on Friday that it wants to soon start working-level talks that could lead to the resumption of full-fledged development aid, following reforms in the long-isolated country.
However, Japan also urged Myanmar to release more political prisoners to continue a series of changes since the army nominally handed over power in March to civilians after the first elections in two decades.
Japan froze new official development assistance (ODA) to the country in 2003, while continuing humanitarian aid. In June, it lifted its ban on new ODA, but has fallen short of resuming full-fledged aid for infrastructure projects.
At a bilateral meeting with President Thein Sein in Indonesia, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda welcomed Myanmar's recent reforms toward democracy, including Friday's decision by the party of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to contest upcoming by-elections.
"At the same time, Prime Minister Noda expressed hope for the release of more political prisoners (in Myanmar)," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsuyoshi Saito told reporters.
Japan has distanced itself from the policy of Western powers, which have imposed tough sanctions on Myanmar, and from that of China, which has pumped billions of dollars into the country. It prefers engagement and dialogue to push for democracy in the country.
President Thein Sein told Noda that Myanmar hoped for Japan's ODA assistance for infrastructure projects, but Japan's premier stopped short of promising specific aid at the summit, he added.
Recent overtures by Myanmar's new civilian government have included calls for peace with ethnic minority groups and the release of about 230 political prisoners and reaching out to Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate freed last year from 15 years of detention.
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Time Magazine - For the First Time in More Than 50 Years, a U.S. Secretary of State Is Set to Visit Burma
Posted by Hannah Beech Friday, November 18, 2011 at 4:47 am
This year, the leaders of Burma, once one of the most hermetic countries on earth, have unleashed a charm campaign on the world. The efforts, ranging from diplomatic globe-trotting to a raft of economic and political reforms designed to impress foreign governments, are now bearing fruit. On Nov. 18, U.S. President Barack Obama announced{http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2099793,00.html} that Hillary Clinton would visit the impoverished nation on December 1. The visit will be the first by a U.S. Secretary of State to Burma in more than five decades. Not even North Korea has been so diplomatically isolated.
Ever since a clutch of generals grabbed power in 1962, Burma, also known as Myanmar, has languished as other parts of Asia have raced ahead. Burma's economy has been hobbled both by the rapaciousness and incompetence of its military leaders{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2005867,00.html} (along with their attendant cronies) and, to a much lesser degree, the bite of Western-led sanctions{http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/03/29/why-burmas-sanctions-debate-doesnt-really-matter/}. But the past 12 months have brought remarkable change to a nation once preserved in a horrible amber. Last November, Burma held its first elections in two decades. Although the polls were hardly free and fair, a nominally civilian government took office in March. Skeptics assumed the new leadership, some of whom were generals who had expressly retired to take on their civilian roles, would serve as a fig-leaf for the military, which kept many plum posts for itself. Instead, aspects of the economy have been liberalized, opposition politicians have been allowed a platform and press freedoms have widened. “We want to seize what could be an historic opportunity for progress,” said Obama during his trip to Indonesia{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2099185,00.html} where he announced Clinton's upcoming visit, “and make it clear that if Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America.”
In finalizing his decision to send such a high-level representative to one of the world's few remaining pariah states, Obama spoke on Nov. 17 with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040197,00.html}. Burma's longtime democracy advocate was released from house arrest last year, after spending most of the previous two decades locked up by the junta. Suu Kyi's continuing support of international sanctions are one key reason that western governments have not rolled them back, even as burgeoning trade with neighbors like China have made the financial restrictions less relevant.
Clinton's upcoming trip is just one sign that foreign countries are cheering on Burma's tentative reforms. The same day as Obama's announcement, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) agreed that Burma would be allowed to chair the regional bloc in 2014. The last time the country came up for such consideration back in 2006, members of the regional grouping—hardly the most vocal champions of human rights—blanched. Burma skipped its turn.
Also on Friday, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) announced that it would re-register as a political party, so it could be part of the official political process and contest coming by-elections. Back in 1990, the NLD won Burma's last polls, which the ruling junta then ignored. NLD elders decided to sit out last year's balloting, which resulted in the party's automatic dissolution according to government rules. Why remove itself? Members of the NLD argued that their beloved leader Suu Kyi was still under house arrest and unable to contest the polls. All indications pointed toward a sham election and fraudulent result. The NLD was right in that parties associated with the junta won the polls with suspiciously big margins. At first, parliament looked like it was straining even to reach the level a rubber-stamp body.
But since this spring, real debate and news has occasionally erupted in the sterile halls of the grand parliament building constructed in Naypyidaw{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1808623,00.html}, Burma's surreal new capital. (In one instance, the country's new Prime Minister Thein Sein, after weeks of back-and-forth in the national assembly, announced this fall that he was suspending construction of a Chinese-backed dam that would send most of its electricity over the border to China.) “No one expected it, but there is actually politics to cover in Burma,” says one Burmese journalist. The media, although still very censored and under constant threat that its reporters might be thrown into jail, can now print things—pictures of Suu Kyi, snippets of political debate, discussion of the ethnic insurgencies flaring up north—unimaginable even a year ago. Exile news websites that were once blocked are currently freely available.
(More from Time.com: Photographs of Burma's struggle for democracy{http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1665535,00.html}.)
Also importantly, Suu Kyi is now free{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2032108,00.html}, having been released a few days after the flawed polls last year. Changes in electoral regulations mean that the woman who should have been P.M. following the 1990 polls could conceivably run for in future by-elections—although electoral shenanigans could still stifle any potential victory. In recent months, the veteran democracy activist, who had an icy relationship with former junta leader Than Shwe, has been able to meet repeatedly with high-ranking Burmese leaders. She has freely criticized the government without repercussion. Posters of the woman known affectionately in Burma simply as “the Lady” are openly on sale in markets. Small protests have occurred in major cities without being met by gunfire, as was the tragic conclusion in 2007 when the military fired{http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1676563,00.html} on Buddhist monks and other unarmed demonstrators.
There is always the possibility that the current era of openness will be cut short by infighting between hardline and reformist leadership factions, just as happened during another brief political dawn at the turn of this century. Some exile groups, in particular, warn foreigners not to be taken in by the generals' (or retired generals') promises of further change. They fret that the Burmese government merely craves international respect—and access to fancy vacation spots in Europe and the U.S. now inaccessible because of Western sanctions on specific Burmese leaders and cronies. Once Burma's leaders get what they want from the global community, these analysts say, the political situation will chill anew.
Certainly, Burma, even after this year's changes, is still a terribly repressed place. Despite much-vaunted prisoner amnesties, thousands of political prisoners still languish in some of the world's most horrendous jails. Skirmishes between ethnic armies and the Burmese army have turned parts of the country's north into battlefields. Ethnic groups accuse Burmese soldiers of mass rape and forced recruitment. The government continues to spend many times more on its military than health and education combined. An influx of Asian investment, most notably from neighbors China and Thailand, hasn't done much to change the lives of Burma's citizens, one-third of whom subsist below the poverty line.
But even acknowledging all this, there is also a feeling that things are truly changing, that this is about more than just some generals' wish to jaunt off to a Western travel spot currently closed off to them. Burma's economy has been mismanaged for so long—one previous military ruler denominated the currency by nine because it was his favorite number—that, clearly, something had to be done. And even though investment is pouring in from China, Burma's military members, many of whom fought Chinese-backed Communist insurgents for decades, are growing wary of their northern neighbor's looming shadow. Besides, Burma's leaders can get a lot more for the country's plentiful natural resources if there are some Western bidders involved. That means convincing the U.S and others to ease their sanctions. Clearly that's a key factor spurring the Burmese government's recent international engagement.
Finally, here's something else for the outside world to consider: Burma's last, ever so slight moment of glasnost may have been foiled in part because its architects were unable to get international support for their reforms. This time around, it's clear that Obama and Clinton don't want the same thing to happen again. The U.S. President on Friday hailed “flickers of progress” in Burma, even as he cautioned that much more must be done. Embers of reform must be encouraged before they light up a country that has been darkened for so long.(More from Time.com: 'Aug San Suu Kyi: Burma's First Lady of Freedom.'{http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040197,00.html})
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18 November 2011 Last updated at 11:04 ET
BBC News - Suu Kyi's NLD democracy party to rejoin Burma politics
The party of Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has agreed to re-enter the political process and contest parliamentary elections.
On Friday her National League for Democracy said it would register to run in the as yet unscheduled by-elections.
The party boycotted the last polls in November 2010, the first in 20 years.
Meanwhile the US is to send Hillary Clinton to Burma next month, amid what President Barack Obama called "flickers of progress" in the nation.
Mr Obama spoke to Aung San Suu Kyi before deciding to send Mrs Clinton, who will be the first US secretary of state to visit in 50 years.
BBC South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey says the developments are being seen as endorsements of the steps taken by the military-backed but civilian-led government towards political reform.
'Unanimous decision'
The announcement followed a meeting of 100 senior NLD leaders in Rangoon.
David Loyn BBC International Development Correspondent, Rangoon
Burma's NLD have decided to re-register as a party, although all of their disagreements with the government have not been resolved.
They have also agreed to put up candidates in all 48 seats up for by-election early next year, and Aung San Suu Kyi is likely to be among them.
Obstacles to them rejoining the political process had included the continued holding of political prisoners, government demands that any candidate should back the 2008 constitution, and the government's refusal to admit that the 1990 election was stolen from the NLD.
They have seen some movement in all three areas - and are assured by a promise made to Aung San Suu Kyi by reformist President Thein Sein that all political prisoners will be released soon.
They are also encouraged by a recent article in a state newspaper by the Parliamentary Speaker Shwe Mann "recognising" the victory of the NLD in the 1990 election.
"We unanimously decide that the National League for Democracy (NLD) will register according to party registration laws, and we will take part in the coming by-elections," a party statement said.
It boycotted the previous polls because of election laws that banned Aung San Suu Kyi - a former political prisoner - from running.
But this regulation has since been dropped, and Aung San Suu Kyi said she now wanted the party to contest all 48 seats left vacant in parliament by the appointment of ministers.
A spokesman for the NLD said it was likely that Aung San Suu Kyi would run for office. And the pro-democracy leader herself said she would do what she thought was necessary.
"If I think I should take part in the election, I will. Some people are worried that taking part could harm my dignity. Frankly, if you do politics, you should not be thinking about your dignity," AFP news agency quoted her as saying.
"I stand for the re-registration of the NLD party. I would like to work effectively towards amending the constitution. So we have to do what we need to do."
The NLD won elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power. Aung San Suu Kyi spent years under house arrest but was freed a year ago by the new government.
Since then it has entered into dialogue with her and freed some - but by no means all - political prisoners.
Aung San Suu Kyi has given a cautious welcome to the moves, but says more progress is needed.
Mr Obama echoed her view in comments at a regional summit in Bali.
"Last night, I spoke to Aung San Suu Kyi directly and confirmed she supports American engagement to move this process forward," he said.
During her visit, Mrs Clinton would "explore whether the United States can empower a positive transition in Burma", he said.
"That possibility will depend on the Burmese government taking more concrete action. If Burma fails to move down the path of reform it will continue to face sanctions and isolation,"
he said.
The US maintains economic sanctions and travel bans against members of the former junta.
The announcement came a day after leaders of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) agreed that Burma could chair the regional bloc in 2014.
Burma was passed over for its turn at the rotating presidency last time because of its human rights record.
But Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said member states believed Burma had made significant progress towards democracy.
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Myanmar's Suu Kyi to run in next elections
By the CNN Wire Staff
November 18, 2011 -- Updated 1435 GMT (2235 HKT)
(CNN) -- Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will participate in the next elections, Nyan Win, the spokesman for her National League for Democracy, said Friday.
Her National League for Democracy announced earlier Friday that it planned to re-register as a political party and participate in all future parliamentary elections.
The NLD won more than 80% of the legislative seats in 1990, the first free elections in the country in nearly 30 years, but the ruling military junta refused to recognize the results.
The elections, as yet unscheduled, are by-elections to fill 48 seats left vacant in parliament by the appointment of ministers in the new government. The last national elections were held in November 2010 and were the first in 20 years.
The junta declared a landslide victory in those elections, but critics worldwide dismissed the voting as a sham.
Suu Kyi and her party had boycotted the vote, faulting the junta. The military regime had enacted a law forcing the NLD to choose between honoring Suu Kyi as its leader and risking the party being declared illegal, or ejecting Suu Kyi from the party and being able to participate in the vote.
Suu Kyi is immensely popular in Myanmar, also known as Burma. She was released a year ago after spending 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest for her unending opposition to authoritarian rule in her native country.
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Aung San Suu Kyi, a tenacious fighter for democracy
By Moni Basu and Dan Rivers, CNN
November 18, 2011 -- Updated 1544 GMT (2344 HKT)
(CNN) -- She is small but only in physical stature. Aung San Suu Kyi is the very embodiment of Myanmar's long struggle for democracy.
The 66-year-old human rights icon defied Myanmar's authoritarian military junta with her quiet demeanor and grace when she spent 15 of 21 years under house arrest for her unending opposition to authoritarian rule in Myanmar.
By the time she was freed in November 2010, she had become, perhaps, the world's most recognizable political prisoner. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.
Over the past year, Suu Kyi has met repeatedly with Myanmar's President Thein Sein and the country's minister for labor and for social welfare, relief and resettlement, Aung Kyi.
Now, she will participate in Myanmar's next elections, Nyan Win, the spokesman for her National League for Democracy, said Friday. Her National League for Democracy announced earlier Friday that it planned to re-register as a political party and participate in all future parliamentary elections.
During her captivity, she lived quietly by herself at her disintegrating Inya Lake villa in Yangon (the former capital, also known as Rangoon), accompanied solely by two maids.
She had little outside human contact except for visits from her doctor.
Sometimes, though, she was able to speak over the wall of her compound to her supporters, never once tiring of her crusade to break down the tyranny of dictatorship in her beloved homeland of Burma, the alternate name for Myanmar.
Known as the "lady" in Myanmar, Suu Kyi has been compared to former South African President Nelson Mandela, who spent a chunk of his life in jail for fighting apartheid.
In an interview with CNN several years ago, Suu Kyi, in fact, likened Myanmar's plight to South Africa's former brutal race-based system.
"It's a form of apartheid," she said. "In Africa, it was apartheid based on color. Here, it is apartheid based on ideas. It is as though those who want democracy are somehow of an alien inferior breed and this is not so."
The daughter of Gen. Aung San, a hero of Burmese independence, Suu Kyi spent much of her early life abroad, going to school in India and at Oxford University in England.
She never sought political office. Rather, leadership was bestowed upon her when she returned home in 1988 after her mother suffered a stroke.
During her visit, a student uprising erupted and spotlighted her as a symbol of freedom. When Suu Kyi's mother died the next year, Suu Kyi vowed that just as her parents had served the people of Burma, so, too, would she.
In her first public speech, she stood before a crowd of several hundred thousand people with her husband, Michael Aris, and her two sons and called for a democratic government.
"The present crisis is the concern of the entire nation," she said. "I could not, as my father's daughter, remain indifferent to all that was going on. This national crisis could, in fact, be called the second struggle for independence."
She won over the Burmese people. One of them was Nyo Ohn Myint, who participated in the 1988 protests as a college professor and now serves as one of the leaders in Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
"She is more than her father's daughter," he told CNN. "She has proven that she can bring together the Burmese people."
In 1989, the military regime threw her in jail. But even with Suu Kyi sitting behind bars, her party won the elections the following year by a landslide, gaining 82 percent of the seats in parliament.
The regime ignored the results of the vote and Senior Gen. Than Shwe continued to impose numerous terms of house arrest on her. Suu Kyi, meanwhile, became the recipient of several human rights prizes and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
Over the years, Suu Kyi repeatedly challenged the junta and discouraged foreign investment in Myanmar. In one incident in 1998, soldiers prevented her from leaving Yangon. But Suu Kyi refused to turn back and was detained in her minivan for almost two weeks. The ordeal left her severely dehydrated, but was typical of her almost stubborn determination.
Myint described her as energetic but humble. And a good listener.
"That's a skill I barely see in other people," Myint said.
She has remained a devoted Buddhist who from the beginning admired the principles on non-violence and civil disobedience espoused by India's Mahatma Gandhi, Myint said.
Over the years, Suu Kyi has made clear her devotion to bringing democracy to Myanmar. She has spoken of her separation from her loved ones as the sacrifice she chose to make for the freedom of her country.
Her dying husband petitioned the Myanmar authorities to allow him to visit his wife. He had last seen her in 1995, but his request was rejected.
Instead, the junta encouraged Suu Kyi to join her family abroad. But she said she knew that if she left, she would never be allowed to return. Aris died of prostate cancer in March 1999.
Even before they were married, Suu Kyi had penned a letter to Aris professing her love of country.
"I only ask one thing," she wrote, "that should my people need me, you would help me to do my duty by them."
Myint recalled calling her to express his condolences after Aris died in 1999. Suu Kyi was calm on the phone for the four-minute conversation but Myint could tell her heart was breaking.
"Maybe we are good at politics," Suu Kyi told Myint. "But we are bad at family matters."
Suu Kyi tried to break the monotony of her life by playing her piano, another passion in her life, according to the independent Irrawaddy magazine.
But in time, the piano warped and Suu Kyi turned to painting to fill the void, the magazine reported. One day, maybe, people will see her canvases.
Suu Kyi has also asked her lawyers to bring her books in English and French.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz had been allowed to present her with his book "Globalization and Its Discontent."
In 2007, people defiantly took to the streets to protest rising fuel costs. The demonstrations were seen as a direct challenge to the authority of the government.
The regime answered with a brutal crackdown. Suu Kyi's detention was extended again and again. She appeared gaunt -- and unhappy.
Even when Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar in May 2008, Suu Kyi was not allowed to leave her house, though trees were crashing down all around her.
The following year, Myanmar was again propelled into the headlines by a bizarre incident involving an American, John Yettaw, who improvised flippers to swim Inya Lake to Suu
Kyi's compound. He said he had received a message from God to do so. Yettaw was arrested, and Suu Kyi was put on trial, charged with harboring Yettaw, and was punished with another 18 months of house arrest.
Some believe that Suu Kyi's stubborn defiance has become an obstacle to progress in Myanmar. But her followers remain ardent in their admiration. She has clung to her dream of democracy, peace and freedom for Myanmar's 50 million impoverished people, they say.
Those simple ideals have greatly complicated one woman's life.
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The Independent - The Lady and the Peacock: The Life of Aung San Suu Kyi By Peter Popham
Lucy Popescu, Friday 18 November 2011
In Freedom from Fear, first published in 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi wrote: "It is not power that corrupts but fear... in any society where fear is rife, corruption in all forms becomes deeply entrenched." Sadly, Burma's military junta retains its grip on power through fraudulent means and intimidation.
In his accessible and impeccably researched biography of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Peter Popham gives a clear-sighted appraisal of how the regime's brutal methods have produced this crippling state of fear. Key events include the 1988 violent crackdown on student-led protests and the equally bloody suppression of the monks' 2007 "Saffron Revolution".
Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won a landslide victory in the 1990 election but the military refused to recognise their right to rule, and responded by imprisoning party members and supporters. Suu Kyi was herself under house arrest at the time. During this unimaginably painful period of isolation, she fell back on her Buddhist faith and meditation. But there were also physical consequences – she had to sell her furniture to pay for food, becoming so weak from malnutrition that her hair started to fall out, and she developed spondylosis.
Her father, Aung San, the independence hero of Burma, was assassinated in 1947 when she was two years old. Suu Kyi has remained steadfastly loyal to his memory. Before she married the Oxford academic Michael Aris, Suu Kyi sent him a letter in which she famously wrote: "I only ask one thing, that should my people need me, you would help me to do my duty by them."
Popham tackles early on the controversy surrounding Suu Kyi's decision to sacrifice her husband and family for her political commitment to a nation. "Suu was acutely aware of the suffering of her people long before she returned to live there: of the poverty forced on the inhabitants of this naturally rich land by the idiocy of its rulers, on the stunting of bodies and minds by criminal economic and social policies."
He suggests that her decision to remain in Burma and forfeit a comfortable life with her husband and children was moral, rather than political. Choosing to stay earned Suu Kyi "an unwavering place in the hearts of tens of millions of Burmese". This came at a terrible cost. In 1999 she was unable to bid farewell to Aris, who was dying of prostate cancer. The regime callously refused to grant him a visa and Suu Kyi knew that, if she left Burma, she would be unable to protect her colleagues and would never be allowed to return.
As well as exploring her formative years, from her childhood in Rangoon, schooling in Delhi and her time in Oxford as a student and later housewife, Popham offers a coherent analysis of Burma's history. He highlights Suu Kyi's many qualities but is never overawed. He suggests that the NLD failed to capitalise on their victory and that some decisions were ill-advised – the vehemence with which she condemned General Ne Win led to her detention.
Throughout, he underlines Suu Kyi's moral authority and suggests that her non-violent approach has not only influenced Burmese society but has also helped to shape non-violent resistance globally. Suu Kyi is now free but her release was timed to deflect attention from the sham elections in November 2010. Popham's stance is admirably compassionate.
This is a poignant account of Suu Kyi's life and her efforts to establish democracy in Burma. It also serves as a powerful indictment of the corruption and fear that has paralysed a once-prosperous nation.
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Posted at 11:43 AM ET, 11/18/2011
The Washington Post - In Burma trip, exiles see chance to free prisoners
By William Wan
A Burmese prisoner was released from the Insein central prison in Rangoon last month. (Soe Than Win — AFP/Getty Images) When Burma declared last month it would release more than 6,000 prisoners, it was seen as a possible sign that a major shift could be underway there. President Obama, in announcing Friday that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would be traveling to the country, cited the prisoner release as an important step toward reform.
But the reality is that only an estimated 200 of those released turned out to be political prisoners. None of the most prominent opposition leaders were among them.
For Burmese exiles and pro-democracy groups, that means Clinton’s trip is an opportunity to push the ruling junta to do more before she even arrives.
“It will be the only way to justify such a high-level official,” said Aung Din, director of U.S. Campaign for Burma and a former Burmese prisoner.
Obama said that the United States remains concerned about Burma’s closed political system, as well as its treatment of political prisoners and minorities. For that reason, among others, the announcement of Clinton’s upcoming trip came as a surprise to the close-knit Burma community in Washington. Some worry it may be coming too soon.
“It gives them prestige, legitimacy, implies in part that this is a reformist government when there’s still such a long way to go,” said Mike Mitchell, a Washington-based activist who has worked with the Burmese democracy movement for more than 20 years. “This isn’t a revolution like in Tunisia or Egypt. This has been a series of small steps forward by a regime that up until seven months ago was one of the most ostracized in the world and for good reason.”
Many interpreted the visit as being part of the Obama administration’s new pivot toward Asia and an effort to counterbalance China’s rising power and influence in the region.
Burma has long relied on China as its key ally, but in recent months has shown signs of anxiety over the relationship. Some of its recent moves — most notably its suspension of an unpopular Chinese-funded dam project — have seemed to signal that the junta is willing to warm to the West.
“There’s a lot of negative sentiment against China among the Burmese people and government,” said Aung Din. “There is anxiety about how much China will push back or demand concessions because of the cancellation of the dam, and how it will behave going into the future.”
The visit by Clinton could be a chance to capitalize on that emerging rift.
“A lot of this has to do with China, and they need to be careful how that’s perceived,” said Michael Green, a former senior official on the National Security Council. “We can’t get sucked into a cynical approach of playing power balance games as China now does. We can’t be seen as putting that ahead of our values on human rights and democracy. And the other danger is if others in the region like India or Japan misinterpret this as a sign that it’s now okay to turn on the spigots of aid to Burma.”
Burma has previously shown signs of reform, only to backtrack, Green and others noted. The fact that Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi endorsed Clinton’s visit indicates there may be a real chance that this time could be different.
But the proof will be in what tangible actions Burma is willing to deliver with Clinton’s visit — actions like the release of more political prisoners.
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NOVEMBER 17, 2011, 11:45 P.M. ET
Wall Street Journal - Myanmar's Hidden Capital Comes Into View
By PATRICK BARTA
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar—Whatever happens with Myanmar's latest tentative thaw with the outside world, one thing is clear after seeing this remote and rarely visited capital: Myanmar's leaders are thinking big.
This may be fortuitous: Thursday's decision at a regional summit in Indonesia to let Myanmar assume the chairmanship of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014 all but ensures that Naypyitaw will take on a higher profile. The position, which Myanmar sought as a way to raise its international standing, involves hosting a lengthy series of diplomatic summits and could draw thousands of foreign visitors to the city.
Take a look at Myanmar's new capital, Naypyitaw. The city used to be largely off limits to Western visitors, but it's opening up as Myanmar's leaders look for more acceptance from the outside world. WSJ's Patrick Barta reports.
On a government-authorized tour this week of the shiny new city—built over the past decade to replace Myanmar's former colonial-era capital of Yangon, and mostly off-limits to Westerners in previous years—a Wall Street Journal reporter and photographer found numerous signs the country's leaders see Myanmar as a major player in Asia despite years of tough economic sanctions from the West, and expect it to be more open in the years ahead.
A massive new airport is under construction with space to handle rows of international jets. The government is adding two new stadiums to help host regional sporting competitions, while developers are building sprawling new hotel complexes.
There's a gigantic new Myanmar International Convention Center—built next to empty fields, and funded by China—as well as a vast domed exhibition hall that looks like a flying saucer (and is roughly the size of a typical American college basketball arena) for international gem sales. Trade in Myanmar's famous precious stones is blocked in the U.S. because of the country's human-rights record, but that hasn't stopped Myanmar, which just sells more of them to China and other parts of Asia.
Western journalists who visited the city before typically did so undercover, shooting furtive photographs and keeping a low profile to avoid detection and possible deportation.
The Wall Street Journal visit on Tuesday, however, was approved by authorities after they agreed to a request from the newspaper to interview government officials about the country's latest reform process, which has included relaxations on the media and the release of hundreds of political prisoners after decades of harsh military rule.
The Wall Street Journal journalists were picked up by government employees at the city's current airport, in a low-slung building surrounded by rice paddies, and told they had "free time" and could see whatever they wanted. For the most part, the cheerful guides made good on their promise, providing a multihour tour of the vast city—which reportedly spreads over hundreds of square miles—that included stops at a shopping mall, some hotels, a "big box" hypermarket and a series of government apartment blocks, though not the parliament.
The sweep of the master-planned city, which is divided into different zones for hotels, residences and government buildings, dwarfs its inhabitants, many of whom seemed a bit bewildered by its size and lack of street life. Traffic police stood under the shade of trees along long roads with no traffic, watching ox carts poke by in fields in the distance.
Several of the six- and eight-lane highways were largely empty except for bicycles, motorbikes and occasional cars, at times resembling empty parade grounds. Chalky dirt roads radiate out from the highways, leading to villages of stilt houses or across rice fields.
Despite the country's crushing poverty—it is one of the poorest in Asia—the city's dozen or so giant roundabouts included neatly-tended potted flowers and landscaped grass, while sprinkler systems watered green areas nearby. The hotel zone included about 30 projects, including a 67-room Hotel Amara "urban resort," with an executive wing with space for corporate seminars.
The guides assigned to The Wall Street Journal were stopped by police at a checkpoint for the city's main attraction—a towering golden pagoda on a hill overlooking Naypyitaw—and told cameras were not allowed on the site. But after a phone call to officials sponsoring the visit, the way was cleared.
Government employees took photos of the visitors as they toured the impressive structure, which includes a sacred Buddha tooth relic from China, and a brief account of the reporters' visit to the site appeared the next day in the government mouthpiece, The New Light of Myanmar. A brigadier general encouraged the journalists to return.
After a meeting with the country's information and culture minister and other officials, in a large government block hidden behind scrubs and jungle, the reporters were escorted back to the airport, with a brief stop for sodas and conversation at a café near the airport.
Naypyitaw was ridiculed by the international media and many foreign diplomats when it was first unveiled a few years ago. It was routinely described as a "jungle" retreat some 300 kilometers from Yangon or "fortified compound" by international news reporters, who suggested it was built to satisfy the astrological whims of the country's eccentric former military regime, or to insulate its leaders from a feared American invasion—as well as from its own people—with reports of a vast network of underground bunkers. Most diplomats refused to move there.
But observers of Myanmar affairs have also argued the city was designed by the country's leaders to make a clean break from Yangon's crumbling infrastructure and colonial legacy–it was known as Rangoon to the British—and recast the country in a more modern mold.
Win Myint, a former government planner who helped design the city, and now works as a private consultant in Yangon, said government leaders had a clear vision when they set about conceptualizing Naypyitaw in the early parts of the last decade. They wanted to avoid the ills of other Asian capitals, like the infamous gridlock of nearby Bangkok, and wanted enough room to handle as many as a million inhabitants (it currently is believed to have less than half that).
Designers visited and studied other capitals and government administrative centers, he said, including Malaysia's master-planned Putrajaya just south of Kuala Lumpur, which they concluded was too close to the big city, giving it too much traffic.
"If you have no clue, you just conclude, these people are crazy," Mr. Win Myint said.
"Of course maybe there were some mistakes, but we tried" to make good decisions, he said.
He said he thinks Naypyitaw will likely grow into its big footprint—as other once-new capitals like Washington, D.C., did— once the new airport is finished and more businesses move in, possibly to support the jade industry.
A few outdoor cafés and street vendors have popped up near government apartment blocks, along with karaoke bars.
Myanmar has abandoned grand plans before. After launching a series of reforms in the 1990s to loosen the state's grip over the economy, it sought to encourage more visitors and built a large international airport in Mandalay to turn the fabled central Myanmar city into an international hub.
But economic sanctions and other problems helped kill those schemes, and large portions of the airport in otherwise-empty countryside outside of Mandalay fell into disuse.
Naypyitaw, as well, could turn out to be a giant, and costly, white elephant. One visitor interviewed on Tuesday, a Chinese diplomat who had traveled from Yangon on business, said he thought it was boring and a bit befuddling. "You just stay at your hotel or go to the pagoda," he said.
"But it's a young city," he added. "There still is construction everywhere— maybe in ten years, it will be a very big city."
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ABC News - Obama Pivots to Engage Myanmar, Sees Reforms Too Important to Ignore
By Jon Garcia | ABC News Blogs – 10 hrs ago
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the United States will engage with the government of Myanmar after seeing “flickers of progress in these last several weeks … on the path toward reform.”
Secy. Clinton will be the first Secretary of State to visit the country in more than half a century when she travels to Burma next month.
Clinton’s trip “will explore whether the United States can empower a positive transition in Burma and begin a new chapter between our countries,” Obama said. “That possibility will depend upon the Burmese government taking more concrete action. If Burma fails to move down the path of reform it will continue to face sanctions and isolation.
“But if it seizes this moment then reconciliation can prevail and millions of people may get to live with greater measure of freedom, prosperity and dignity. And that possibility is too important to ignore.
“The persecution of democratic reformers, the brutality shown toward ethnic minorities and the concentration of power in the few military leaders has challenged our conscience and isolated Burma from the United States and much of the world,” Obama told reporters covering his trip to Bali, Indonesia for the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) conference. The U.S. government refers to the country by its former name, before it was changed by the new regime.
The United States has imposed trade and monetary sanctions against Myanmar over the last decade in response to the oppression, and has openly supported Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was under house arrest until late last year.
“For decades Americans have been deeply concerned about the denial of basic human rights for the Burmese people,” he said. But now “the government has released some political prisoners, media restrictions have been relaxed and legislation has been approved that could open the political environment. So taken together, these are the most important steps toward reform in Burma that we’ve seen in years,” he said.
Those steps, he said, offer an opening for a change in relations.
“We want to seize what could be an historic opportunity for progress. And make it clear that if Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform it could forge a new relationship with the United States of America,” he said, though he warned that there is much more to be done.
Specifically those steps included releasing more than 100 political prisoners in October, passing new laws that would potentially allow Aung San Suu Kyi’s party to run in elections, allow trade unions, unblocking some websites, and allowing access to Voice of America and Radio Free Asia, a senior administration official said.
Before making the announcement, Obama called Aung San Suu Kyi from aboard Air Force One to confirm her support for the U.S. opening the dialogue. During the 20-minute call, she and Obama discussed the reconciliation process, and putting an end to the violence. She strongly supported Clinton’s upcoming visit, the official said. She even asked Obama about how his dog Bo was doing and told him she had a dog too.
“We’ve decided to take this step to respond to the positive developments in Burma and to clearly demonstrate America’s commitment to the future of an extraordinary country, a courageous people, and universal values,” Obama said.
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EUbusiness - EU hails 'courageous' comeback of Suu Kyi party in Myanmar
18 November 2011, 16:32 CET
(BRUSSELS) - EU chief diplomat Catherine Ashton welcomed the "courageous" return of Myanmar's opposition party to the political arena on Friday as another sign of "great hope" in the military-dominated nation.
"I am delighted at the announcement by the National League for Democracy (NLD) that they are going to join forthcoming by-elections in Myanmar," Ashton said.
"This is a courageous and welcome decision. Fair and transparent elections leading to a wider representation of the people in the Burmese parliament will be a key step towards making national reconciliation a reality," she said.
The European Union's foreign policy chief congratulated the government and parliament for passing amendments to the law, enabling the party of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to re-register as a political party and contest coming by-elections.
"The continuing positive developments in Myanmar are a source of great hope and encouragement," Ashton said. "I look forward to them continuing, including a further substantial release of political prisoners."
The United States and European countries have imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar over its human rights record, including the imprisonment of about 2,000 political detainees, about 200 of whom were freed last month.
The EU has launched a "substantial review" of its policy towards Myanmar, Ashton said.
"The European Union will want to accompany Myanmar on the path it is taking, both with political and economic engagement. I am looking forward to discussing all this directly with Myanmar interlocutors," she said.
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Monsters and Critics - EU hints at lifting Myanmar sanctions after opposition ends boycott
Nov 18, 2011, 15:06 GMT
Brussels - The European Union hinted Friday it may lift sanctions on Myanmar after its main opposition party decided it would end a boycott on parliamentary elections by registering for a by-election early next year.
'I am delighted at the announcement by the National League for Democracy (NLD),' EU Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton said in a statement. 'This is a courageous and welcome decision.'
'The EU has always stated that it will respond to positive events in the country. The restrictive measures have already been partly modified this year. A more substantial review of EU policy is already underway,' Ashton added.
The NLD is led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from house arrest on November 13. In a further gesture towards the opposition, authorities this year also released hundreds of dissidents from prison.
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GMA News - US, Europe, Japan welcome 'progress' in Myanmar
Laura MacInnis, Caren Behan, David Brunnstrom, and Yoko Nishikawa, Reuters
11/18/2011 | 10:50 PM
NUSA DUA, Indonesia - US President Barack Obama said on Friday he saw "flickers of progress" in Myanmar, dispatching Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for a historic visit that could draw the country out of half a century of global isolation.
Obama, in Indonesia for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders, said he had spoken for the first time withMyanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who told him she supported more US engagement with the country also known as Burma.
In another indication of change in Myanmar, Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, re-registered on Friday to contest a series of by-elections for vacant parliamentary seats. This follows amendments to electoral laws and brings Suu Kyi a step closer to returning to politics.
Obama said the release of political prisoners, relaxing of media restrictions and signs of legislative change in recent weeks were "the most important steps toward reform in Burma that we've seen in years".
Clinton's two-day visit from Dec. 1 would be the first by a US Secretary of State since a 1962 military coup ushered in 50 years of unbroken military rule that ended in March when a nominally civilian parliament was established.
Since then, the new government has called for peace with ethnic minority groups, displayed some tolerance of criticism, suspended an unpopular Chinese-funded dam project, freed about 230 political prisoners and reached out to Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate freed last year from 15 years of detention.
"We want to seize what could be a historic opportunity for progress and make it clear that if Burmacontinues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America," Obama said.
"If Burma fails to move down the path of reform, it will continue to face sanctions and isolation. But if it seizes this moment, then reconciliation can prevail," Obama said.
Human rights
Many Western governments have expressed caution that more must be done for Myanmar's reforms to be considered credible. As early as Oct. 17, for instance, Derek Mitchell, special US envoy forMyanmar, said there were "credible reports" of continuing human rights abuses against women and children.
Clinton is scheduled to meet Suu Kyi and visit Yangon and the capital Naypyitaw. She will "explore whether the United States can empower a positive transition in Burma and begin a new chapter between our countries", Obama said.
Myanmar welcomed the visit.
"It's a very good sign," Ko Ko Hlaing, chief political adviser to Myanmar's president, told Reuters. "I think it is a significant turn in US policy towards Myanmar ... people in Myanmar will welcome, cheer Hillary Clinton because for a time in history, they have never seen a secretary of state."
With sanctions blocking Western investments, China has emerged as Myanmar's biggest ally, investing in infrastructure, hydropower dams and twin oil-and-gas pipelines to help feed southern China's growing energy needs.
Bilateral trade rose more than half last year to $4.4 billion, and China's investment in Myanmarreached $12.3 billion in 2010, according to Chinese figures, with a strong focus on natural resources and energy.
But the relationship has been strained, with a long history of resentment of China among the Burmese population and fierce public opposition to a Chinese-built dam at Myitsone that prompted Myanmar President Thein Sein to shelve the project last month, a move that stunned Beijing.
A U.S. official said the Obama administration "fully expects" China to welcome US engagement withMyanmar and the United States would consult China closely on its engagement with the Southeast Asian country.
China is wary of greater US influence in the region, especially in countries on its border, as Myanmaris, but the US decision to engage with Myanmar should not be seen as an attempt to contain China, the US official said, adding that a stable Myanmar was in China's interests.
"It's about Burma, not about China," the official said.
When Obama took office in 2009, he made reaching out to American adversaries a signature part of his foreign policy approach. That included an effort early to engage with Iran.
But the administration took a cautious approach on Myanmar because of its human rights record. Obama requested a policy review on Myanmar, paving the way for the recent diplomacy.
US officials said that Obama spoke to Suu Kyi during his flight on Thursday from Australia to Bali.
The 20-minute call was the first time they had talked and he told her he had long admired her democratic struggle. They described it as a meaningful but friendly conversation in which Suu Kyi also asked about Obama's family dog.
He asked for her ideas on how to approach her country.
"She encouraged the president to make clear to Burma's leaders that the U.S. will be willing to work with them if they are in fact demonstrating that they are willing to work with the world and her," one US official said.
Obama is not scheduled to have a bilateral meeting with Thein Sein but will see him in Bali at a East Asia Summit.
Southeast Asian nations endorsed Myanmar on Thursday for the chairmanship of its regional grouping in 2014, gambling that the country can stick to reforms begun this year. The United States respected that decision, a US official said.
BRUSSELS - The European Union said on Friday a decision by the party ofMyanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to take part in upcoming by-elections was "encouraging", and said a review of its policy toward the reclusive Asian nation was under way.
A spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton urged Myanmar to release more dissidents, but said it was already looking at whether reforms there could justify a further easing of sanctions.
"We hope that these elections are conducted in a fair and transparent manner. This would be yet another step towards national conciliation," spokesman Michael Mann said.
Mann hailed the "encouraging, positive developments" in the country and expressed hope they would continue, "including a further substantial release of political prisoners."
"The EU has always stated that it will respond to positive events in the country. The restrictive measures have already been partly modified in April," he said, referring to EU sanctions. "A more substantial review of EU policy is already under way."
Ashton sent her top foreign policy adviser to Myanmar earlier this year, and the EU slightly eased sanctions in April by suspending enforcement of travel bans and asset freezes on 24 civilian government officials to encourage reform.
The new government has called for peace with minority groups, displayed some tolerance of criticism, suspended an unpopular Chinese-funded dam project, freed about 230 political prisoners and somewhat improved relations with Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate who was freed last year after 15 years of detention.
However, large numbers of political prisoners remain and EU officials have said they would wait to see how many were actually freed, when judging the government's sincerity.
One EU diplomat said his country was still taking a wait-and-see attitude. "Although the military government has given way to a so-called civilian government, it still seems that this may be window-dressing and we would like to see some results."
NUSA DUA - Japan told Myanmar on Friday that it wants to soon start working-level talks that could lead to the resumption of full-fledged development aid, following reforms in the long-isolated country.
However, Japan also urged Myanmar to release more political prisoners to continue a series of changes since the army nominally handed over power in March to civilians after the first elections in two decades.
Japan froze new official development assistance (ODA) to the country in 2003, while continuing humanitarian aid. In June, it lifted its ban on new ODA, but has fallen short of resuming full-fledged aid for infrastructure projects.
At a bilateral meeting with President Thein Sein in Indonesia, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Nodawelcomed Myanmar's recent reforms towards democracy, including Friday's decision by the party of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to contest upcoming by-elections.
"At the same time, Prime Minister Noda expressed hope for the release of more political prisoners (inMyanmar)," Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Tsuyoshi Saito told reporters.
Japan has distanced itself from the policy of Western powers, which have imposed tough sanctions onMyanmar, and from that of China, which has pumped billions of dollars into the country. It prefers engagement and dialogue to push for democracy in the country.
President Thein Sein told Noda that Myanmar hoped for Japan's ODA assistance for infrastructure projects, but Japan's premier stopped short of promising specific aid at the summit, he added.
Recent overtures by Myanmar's new civilian government have included calls for peace with ethnic minority groups and the release of about 230 political prisoners and reaching out to Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate freed last year from 15 years of detention.
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EUROPEAN UNION - Statement by High Representative Catherine Ashton on the decision of NLD to re-register as a political party in Myanmar (Burma)
Brussels, 18 November 2011
A 460/11
Catherine Ashton, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission, made today the following statement:
"I am delighted at the announcement by the National League for Democracy (NLD) that they are going to join forthcoming by-elections in Myanmar (Burma). This is a courageous and welcome decision. Fair and transparent elections leading to a wider representation of the people in the Burmese Parliament will be a key step towards making national reconciliation a reality. My congratulations go also to the Government and the Parliament for passing the amendments to the law which have enabled the NLD's decision.
The continuing positive developments in Myanmar are a source of great hope and encouragement. I look forward to them continuing, including a further substantial release of political prisoners. The European Union will want to accompany Myanmar on the path it is taking, both with political and economic engagement. I am looking forward to discussing all this directly with Myanmar interlocutors.
The EU has always stated that it will respond to positive events in the country. The restrictive measures have already been partly modified this year. A more substantial review of EU policy is already under way."
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CHENNAI, November 18, 2011
The Hindu - After a decade, Suu Kyi accepts award
Special Correspondent
Nearly a decade after it was conferred, a prestigious United Nations award for promoting peace and tolerance has finally been presented to its winner, Myanmarese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi.
Ms. Suu Kyi was chosen for the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence in 2002, but it is only now that the Myanmar government has allowed her to accept the award carrying a prize of $1,00,000.
On November 16—the United Nations Day of Tolerance — UNESCO arranged a video conference with Ms. Suu Kyi for handing over a cheque for the amount, while announcing the awardees of the 2011 UNESCO- Madanjeet Singh Prize.
In a video message of congratulations on her acceptance of the prize amount in Yangon (Myanmar), Mr. Madanjeet Singh, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and founder of the prize, pointed to the initiative of the South Asia Foundation (SAF) in establishing a UNESCO Madanjeet Singh institute of excellence in the proposed Nalanda University, on the lines of the 12 institutions established in the eight SAARC countries.
He requested Ms. Suu Kyi to become the Chief Patron of the Madanjeet Singh institute of excellence that would be devoted to Theravada studies, modelled on a similar institute set up in Kashmir for studies of Sufi-Bhakti-Rishi culture.
Special tribute
UNESCO has also decided that during the award ceremony slated at its Paris headquarters for December 9, a special tribute would be paid to the Nobel Peace Laureate along with the presentation of video messages by Ms. Suu Kyi and Mr. Madanjeet Singh.
Other eminent personalities expected to attend the ceremony include French diplomat and human rights activist Stéphane Hessel, laureate of the UNESCO-Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights, and Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former Secretary-General of the U.N..
Turkish philosopher Ioanna Kuçuradi, the Chairperson of the International Jury of the UNESCO-Madanjeet Singh Prize, and the two laureates for 2011, Anarkali Honaryar and Khaled Abu Awwad, will take the floor during the event.
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The Irrawaddy - China-US Rivalry Overshadows Bali Summit
By SIMON ROUGHNEEN Friday, November 18, 2011
BANGKOK—Burma's Government has been granted its wish to hold the Association of Southeast Nations (Asean) chair in 2014, but the weekend's Asia-Pacific summits in Bali will be dominated by a growing US-China rivalry.
US President Barack Obama flew into Bali on Thursday night—the first time an American President will attend an Asean/East Asian summit—and, in what China will surely take as a provocation, is likely to bring up the simmering South China Sea dispute.
Vietnam and the Philippines have sought backing not only from the US in their confrontations with China over ownership of islands in the sea, but also from Japan and India. All told, seven countries have claims of some sort on the mineral and fishery-rich waterway, and China's uncompromising stance to date has set its neighbors on edge, offering the US a chance to step in.
In Bangkok last month, Kurt Campbell, the senior-ranking U.S official covering Asia, pledged that the US would shift resources and attention from the Middle East and South Asia to the Asia-Pacific region. However, the US has work to do, in Southeast Asia at least. According to a paper by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington D.C.
think-tank, the US dropped from being Asean’s largest trading partner to fourth, a swing compounded as China went from ninth to first over the same time-period.
New US plans to launch a free trade bloc known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) seem explicitly designed to counter China's growing economic weight in the region. The same proposal could prove a useful re-election peg for Obama next year, a buffer against Republican party accusations that he has been slack on boosting US trade links and has failed to stand-up to Beijing.
And while still-sanctioned Burma, with its mothballed economy and infrastructure, is a long way from joining any US-led free trade grouping, Burma hosting an Asean summit in 2014 is now a done deal. If Obama is re-elected, therefore, he will likely visit Burma at least once in 2014 for the summit.
On Friday, the US president announced that he will send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Burma next month—for the first visit to the country by a US secretary of state since military rule was first imposed nearly 50 years ago.
The internationally-backed reputation-laundering of a once-pariah state will facilitate US economic and political relationship-building in Burma and—Washington hopes—will lay the groundwork for an attempted roll-back of China's economic influence there, at least to the extent that Burma does not become a signed sealed and delivered Chinese vassal.
Two days after Burma's foreign minister met with American officials in the U.S., Burma's President Thein Sein announced —to international astonishment—the suspension of the US $3.6 billion China-funded Myitsone Dam project in northern Burma. By causing China to lose face in such a public and abrupt manner, and demonstrate that it is not yet the Chinese vassal some depict it to be, the Burmese government thinks it has done its bit to entice the US to “engage” more. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, Burma’s Information Minister Kway Hsan hinted at what the Burmese government wants next from the Americans by blaming US sanctions for hindering development in Burma and forcing the country to rely on Chinese investment.
That said, it seems that the US is not yet ready to relax sanctions, suggesting that the Burmese need to undertake additional reforms before topping the bar in Washington's eyes. Speaking in Australia on Thursday morning, Obama said that "Some political prisoners have been released. The government has begun a dialogue. Still, violations of human rights persist. So we will continue to speak clearly about the steps that must be taken for the government of Burma to have a better relationship with the United States."
One country that is not yet sure of its Asean approval is Timor-Leste, which submitted a revised membership application to the current Asean chair and former occupier Indonesia on Tuesday.
Previously, Timor Leste’s application had always faced rejection from Singapore, which argued that the country would hinder Asean’s moves toward an EU-style “community” by 2015. This week, Indonesia's ever-quotable foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said that “Asean ministers welcome Timor Leste’s application. We have formed a working group to review the roadmap Timor Leste will take to become a member based on the Asean Declaration,” though it is not clear whether Singapore's misgivings have been overcome.
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The Irrawaddy - More Daylight Between China and Burma
By ASIA SENTINEL Friday, November 18, 2011
Last Monday, Burma’s new defense chief, Gen Min Aung Hlaing, arrived in Vietnam for his first trip abroad —conspicuously not choosing to visit China as his predecessors always have. That is the latest thumb in the eye for Beijing, from a government that literally owes its existence to China.
The snub follows the decision in late September to cancel the US$3.6 billion Myitsone Dam, which was designed to produce 3,600 to 6,000 megawatts of power, 80 percent of which was to be delivered to China. The dam was under preliminary construction by the state-owned China Power Investment Corp.
Those are dramatic developments in relations between the two countries and they have not gone unnoticed in Washington, DC. Some sources speculated that the Burmese military might be seeking a defense arrangement of some sort with the Vietnamese, China’s most vocal adversary in Southeast Asia.
“Burma's been getting a lot of attention lately, for a number of reasons: internal politics and possible liberalization; the protests against the Chinese dam, and Burma's geostrategic relations with both China and India,” said a US intelligence official in an email. “I think the (Min Aung Hlaing) trip is a conscious effort on Burma's part to engage in a bit of light
hedging. I've also seen a surge in scholarship on Burma lately, mostly for the India-China issue.”
Both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have taken notice of the change, with Obama noting in a speech in Australia that some political prisoners have been released, but that more must be, and cautioning that violations of human rights still persist.
The decision in Naypyidaw, Burma’s northern capital, to put a bit of space between the two countries is at least a lull in relations with the Chinese ,which have grown increasingly closer since the west imposed an embargo in 1988 after a bloody crackdown against protesters that took hundreds of lives. In a wider sense, it is a demonstration of just how tenuous China’s so-called soft power really is. In that, Burma is seemingly at one with other small nationsl on China's flanks, which have become increasingly unsettled as Chinese Authorities have declared no dissent would be tolerated on such issues as hegemony over the South China Sea and other "core interests."
China became by far Burma’s most important supplier of military goods as well as a major supplier of consumer and capital goods as well in the wake of the 1988 western embargoes, which have been increasingly tightened (and increasingly broken by Thailand and other countries eager for Burma's natural resources). Major pipelines snake across the entire country from the Bay of Bengal side of the country, delivering oil and gas to China despite the fact that an estimated 70 percent of Burma is without electricity. Chinese money from the purchase of vast amounts of natural resources is regarded as having propped up the junta that preceded the current government, providing the funds that have modernized the Burmese army and air force.
All of that has antagonized Burmese citizens, who complain that they are being colonized by their neighbor.
It is clear that Burma is seeking to step back from China at the same time it is opening to the wider world. Just this week, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations formally named Burma to head the 10-member regional organization at an Asean summit in Bali.
But how far it can step back without rippling the scales of the Chinese dragon remains to be seen.
“I think the Burmese are hedging their bets: don't put all the eggs in the PRC basket,” a China-watcher told Asia Sentinel. “Beijing can be a tough taskmaster. The Chinese look upon Burma as kind of a satellite state and the Burmese earned their displeasure by nixing the dam project a while ago.”
Nonetheless, as they have opened to the world in the wake of plainly rigged elections a year ago, the government in Naypyidaw has reached out to the United States and a growing number of other countries as a counterbalance. That has been matched by eager regional powers that would prefer to pry Burma somewhat out of China’s embrace, partly because of the vast resources of oil, gas and other natural resources in the largely undeveloped country.
As Toshihira Toda pointed out in a recent paper on the imbalance in trade, Burma’s imports from China have vastly outpaced its exports.
While exports to China increased nearly seven-fold between the 1990s and 2006, its imports from China increase by nearly 10 times, resulting in a what Toda described as a “huge” trade deficit of US$1.098 billion, 2.4 times larger than its total trade surplus in the same year.
“The Burmese have long realized that they have heavily depended on China - so we will see a major shift in coming years,” said Aung Zaw, the publisher of Irrawaddy, a Chiang Mai, Thailand-based independent publication. “Burma will find partners in the West (the US) to counter China's growing clout. But it has to be careful, and I think it will be delicate and sophisticated diplomacy. Since Burma has formed a strategic relationship with China this year, Burma cannot afford to upset the big brother. The issue of Myitsone is still unsettling and Beijing is obviously upset.”
In reality, Toda writes, Sino–Burmese relations “have undergone a series of ups and downs and China has occasionally posed a real threat to (Burma’s) security, such as the incursion of defeated Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang or KMT) troops into the northern Shan State in 1949, overt and covert Chinese support for the Burmese Communist Party’s insurgency against Rangoon up until 1988 and confrontations between Burmese and resident overseas Chinese, including militant Maoist students in 1967. Indeed, the (Burmese) leadership, always extremely sensitive about the country’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, had long observed strict neutrality during the Cold War, avoiding obtaining military and economic aid from the superpowers.”
Although there has been no detailed announcement about Min Aung Hlaing’s to Vietnam, military observers told The Irrawaddy that the visit was intended to cement military bilateral corporation between the two countries at the invitation of Vietnam’s National Defense Minister Gen Phung Quang Thanh.
Burma’s former Commander-in-Chief Tin Oo, currently one of the leaders of the National League for Democracy (NLD), said that there have not been many instances of military cooperation with Vietnam. He added that the two nations merely conducted research together and Burmese commanders made a case study of the separation of North and South Vietnam.
Tin Oo said, “There’s a small difficulty with China since the president declared the suspension of the Myitsone Dam. Although it is just a military delegation, they want to gain some political respect from China by showing military cooperation with Vietnam.”
Tin Oo also speculated that “the United States is trying to engage with both the Burmese government and opposition groups like our NLD. Therefore, the delegation might also ask for suggestions regarding how to deal with the United States.”
Aung Lynn Htut, a former major in Burmese intelligence who defected in 2005 while serving as deputy chief of the Burmese embassy in Washington D.C., said that although Burma and Vietnam are not military allies, there’s a historical relationship between the respective armed forces regarding defense strategy during the American-Vietnam war.
Aung Kyaw Zaw, a Sino-Burmese military observer, said that the goal of the trip is more likely to be influencing Burma's relationship with China.
“China might be worried when they see that a Burmese commander-in-chief went to Vietnam which has been in conflict with [Beijing] over the maritime dispute [regarding oil and gas exploration in the South China Sea]. Burma also wants to show China that they can deal with any country,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw. “They might also ask to buy some military installations from Vietnam in the future.”
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The Irrawaddy - Obama Seeks Greater US Role in East Asia
By BEN FELLER, AP WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT Friday, November 18, 2011
BALI, Indonesia (AP)—US President Barack Obama will appeal on Friday to nations large and small for help with America's security agenda, anxious to build some regional political balance to the rising might of China. He will try to prod for some progress over the hotly contested South China Sea, one of the most vital shipping channels in the world.
Obama's Asia-Pacific tour has now brought him home twice—first to Hawaii, where he was born, and now to the Indonesia, a nation of thousands of islands where he spent years as a boy. His stop in Bali is driven by his promise to be the first American president to take part in the East Asian Summit, a forum he wants to elevate as a force friendly to American interests.
Obama arrived in this resort island late on Thursday from Australia, where he announced a new military presence and sent Beijing a message that America "is all in" across the Asia-Pacific. The White House is determined to show that American leadership here, far from home, is wanted after a decade in which wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated attention.
The United States needs help from the region, too—both in bolstering the stalled American economy and in cooperating over threats from piracy to nuclear proliferation.
With an eye on the American public's interests, Obama begins his agenda in Bali by hailing commercial pacts his aides say could support more than 120,000 jobs.
He will preside over the announcement of the sale of Boeing 737s to Lion Air, which could reach US $35 billion, one of the largest trade deals between the United States and Indonesia.
More broadly, Obama's presence is meant to try to lift up the regional power structures here and insert the American voice more than ever.
He will attend a meeting with the heads of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (Asean), whose 10 members include host Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The group will expand for the East Asia Summit, a forum that also counts China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the US as members.
Obama will also use the summit sidelines to meet with leaders such as Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with whom the president has developed a close relationship. Obama made a point to meet with Singh in Bali as part of his mission to devote attention to India, which the administration wants to play a larger role in Asia as the world's largest democracy.
Looming over everything, as is usual with a presidential to this part of the world, is China. Its economy and military growth give it growing clout on the world stage.
The United States has no territorial claim but an enormous stake over the South China Sea, where disputes run deep.
Four Asean member states—Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam —lay claims to the region believed to be rich in oil. China and its rival Taiwan are the other claimants.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton signed a declaration with her counterpart from the Philippines this week calling for multilateral talks to resolve maritime disputes such as those over the South China Sea. China wants them to negotiate one-to-one and chafes at any US involvement.
The summit talks will be judged in part over whether any progress in made in resolving the maritime disputes.
US officials are quick to note the importance of the South China Sea, where $1.2 trillion in US trade moves annually, according to Adm. Robert Willard, head of the US Pacific Command.
Briefing reporters traveling with Obama this week, Willard called it "a vital interest to the region, a national interest to the United States, an area that carries an immense amount of
commerce and an area in which we must maintain maritime security and peace and not see disruptions as a consequence of contested areas."
Leaders of smaller Asian states are increasingly alarmed over China's claims to maritime passage and rich oil reserves in the South China Sea.
The big news of Obama's trip so far was the establishment of a marine presence in northern Australia to give the US more power in the region and ability to respond to crises.
On Thursday, China was muted in its public response, saying only that more robust American ties to Australia should not harm other countries. "China has no opposition to the development of normal state-to-state relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing. "We also hope that when developing normal state-to-state relations, one should take into consideration the interests of other countries as well as the whole region and the peace and stability of the region."
Behind the scenes, however, the more assertive US policy toward China was setting Beijing on edge.
The government's Xinhua News Agency said the US feels threatened by China's rise and influence in Southeast Asia and said Obama's goal was "pinning down and containing China and counterbalancing China's development."
Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.
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Burma’s NLD decision to campaign welcomed
Friday, 18 November 2011 21:24 Myo Thant
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burma’s opposition political parties including the National Unity Party [NUP], a former rival of the NLD, welcomed the NLD decision to re-register as a party and contest in the next by-election.
Khin Maung Swe, the leader of the policy affairs committee of National Democratic Force (NDF), said recently that his party wants to cooperate with the NLD in Parliament.
A former NLD central executive committee member, he said, “We are ready to cooperate. All we need is that they want to work together, too. If they want to cooperate with us, there is no reason we should refuse. Whatever Daw Suu [Aung San Suu Kyi] wants to do, we are ready to lend her a hand.”
Khin Maung Swe used a metaphor that Aung San Suu Kyi is the burning torch of Burmese politics. He said that he supported Suu Kyi because he believed that if she is in the Parliament, useful laws would be approved and enacted.
NUP spokesman Han Shwe said that the NLD registration was “the first step for national reconciliation.”
Toe Kyaw Hlaing of the 88-generation students group said the decision reflected the desire of the Burmese people.
“We believe that the NLD’s decision is based on the desires of most of the NLD members,” Toe Kyaw Hlaing said.
The NLD central committee meeting was held on Friday at NLD headquarters in Rangoon to decide whether the NLD would register or not. In the meeting, 106 central committee members from states and regions across the country unanimously decided to register, according to NLD spokesman Ohn Kyaing.
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Information Ministry launches ‘Naypyitaw Times Journal’
Friday, 18 November 2011 21:14 Phanida
Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The Information Ministry on Friday launched a new weekly journal called the “Naypyitaw Times.”
Myo Tun, the chief editor of Sarpay Beikman, will be the chief editor of the “Naypyitaw Times,” and Saw Lin Aung, a former editor of Rangoon Media Group, will serve as executive editor.
Twenty-five correspondents will staff the journal. The headquarters is located in the Sarpay Beikman building at the corner of 37th Road and Merchant Road in Kyauktada Township in Rangoon. The journal will be distributed across the country.
“Our journal is like other private news journals. We want to create a market. We will talk about policy, and we will be similar to [private] news journals,” a member of the editorial team said on the condition of anonymity.
“I think that they want to report about the government’s actions. It seems the officials want the people to know about their actions now, because the journal was allowed to publish an interview with the Information Minister. No other journal could publish an interview with the minister,” the editor told Mizzima.
During the British colonial era in Burma in 1937, a Burmese man, Tun Shwe, and his colleagues founded the “Nagani” publishing house and published books on anti-expansionism and anti-fascism. After Burma achieved independence, the publishing house was renamed “Sarpay Beikman.” Later, successive Burmese governments took control, and today the Information Ministry operates it.
The debut issue marks the 91st anniversary of Burma’s National Day on November 20, and contains special articles and interviews about National Day, a local editor told Mizzima. He said the journal featured a story about Burma’s last ruler, King Hsipaw, and the day he was arrested by British authorities.
“The journal wants to reveal the information banned in Ne Win’s era,” he told Mizzima.
The first issue also contains news articles, poems, international news in translation and pop news. The journal will be distributed on Sundays.
The Information Ministry’s Sarpay Beikman has set up a fund for the journal. Like other news journals, it is required to pass articles through censors prior to publication. The price of the journal is 500 kyat (about US $0.75).
The debut issue also includes a five-page translation of a Wall Street Journal interview with Information Minister Kyaw Hsan by Patrick Barta of the Southeast Asian office of the Wall Street Journal.
The Information Ministry is currently publishing three daily newspapers including the “New Light of Myanmar,” “The Mirror” and “Myawaddy.” A total of more than 300,000 newspapers are distributed daily.
Under Burmese censorship rules enacted in June, there are two categories of publications. Group 1 includes 82 publications, which don’t need to pass articles through censors prior to publication, but must submit copies after publication. Group 2 includes 94 publications, which must pass articles through censors prior to publication.
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Obama talks to Aung San Suu Kyi
Friday, 18 November 2011 12:35 Mizzima News
(Mizzima) – U.S. President Barack Obama talked to Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi by phone on Thursday to confirm that she supported U.S. engagement to encourage the Burmese government’s steps toward democratic reform.
ABC news correspondent Jake Tapper reported that after Suu Kyi reiterated her support, Obama on Friday asked Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to travel to Burma in December to explore how the U.S. can support further progress. Clinton will be the first American Secretary of State to visit Burma in more than 50 years.
Tapper said a senior administration official said that Obama and Aung San Suu Kyi “reviewed the progress that has been made in Burma, including her release, her dialogue with the government, the release of some political prisoners, and legislation that could open the political system further. It was important to the President that she welcomed this deeper engagement by the US. This was their first conversation.”
The official said there is “much more that must be done in Burma, and the U.S. has ongoing concerns about Burma’s human rights record, treatment of ethnic minorities, and closed society. They will need to go further with reforms to have a new relationship with the U.S.”
Clinton will explore what the U.S. can do to support progress on political reform, human rights and national reconciliation.
Recently, a procession of high-level U.S. diplomats have arrived in Naypyitaw, Burma’s capital, to meet with the country’s political leaders, who are dominated by former generals. One U.S. official met with Burma’s commander in chief, in a move seen as perhaps opening the way for some form of military cooperation.
Burma is being courted by neighboring countries, especially China, India and Thailand, who seek to gain access to its vast oil, gas and mineral resources.
On Thursday in Indonesia, Burma was awarded the chairmanship of Asean for 2014, a move that brings the country into the mainstream of Asian politics.
Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy, is widely expected to announce on Friday that it will re-register as a political party in order to take part in the coming by-election and contest for some of the 48 open seats in Parliament.
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DVB News - Shell mustn’t ‘pre-empt’ Burma sanctions: UK
By JOSEPH ALLCHIN
Published: 18 November 2011
Andrew Mitchell, the first cabinet-level EU minister to visit Burma, has warned foreign companies not to “pre-empt” a cessation of EU sanctions on Burma in light of rumours that
Royal Dutch Shell will enter the country’s lucrative extractive sector.
The UK’s international development secretary left Burma yesterday evening after his first visit to the country, in which he saw “clear and immutable changes”. Western nations, he said, would be “big-hearted and generous” to the Burmese leadership if it continues on its current trajectory, notably releasing all political prisoners.
But he reserved stern words for the Anglo-Dutch energy giant, whom reports suggest is looking to partner Thailand’s state-owned PTT Exploration in attempting to develop an offshore gas block off Burma’s southern coast.
Shell already works with PTTE in gas and oil fields in New Zealand, and Thailand’s Nation newspaper said the two companies were “in talks” regarding “interesting countries for Shell [which] also includes Burma”, whose energy reserves are drawing increasing attraction from regional neighbours and the US and EU.
The M-11 block in question lies just south of the Irrawaddy delta in the Gulf of Martaban, close to the M-9 block which is also owned by PTTE. Plans are being made to connect these to Thailand via the Zawtika pipeline, which is currently under construction.
Shell is seen as a world leader in deep sea exploration and production (E&P), a capability that PTTE requires to develop M-11, which they own outright. This could see Shell buy a stake in the block.
The oil giant is the fifth largest company on earth and operational in 90 countries, but would become the first major western energy multinational to re-enter Burma since sanctions were enacted in the 1990s. US oil company Chevron and France’s Total have maintained a controversial presence in the country despite the economic blockade.
With several western companies pressing to enter Burma, trade delegations from EU states including Austria and Sweden have over the past year discreetly made exploratory trips.
Mitchell said however that the country’s oil and gas sector was specifically designated as off-limits by EU sanctions, along with timber, gems, jade and arms. The EU carried sanctions over for another year in April but did ease travel restrictions on some senior members of the government, such as foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin.
As well as meetings with President Thein Sein and parliamentary speaker Shwe Mann, Mitchell also held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday at one of the NLD’s 18 free schools for deprived children, an experience the Conservative party minister described as “emotional”.
The UK government has been given much greater access to ministers in Naypyidaw, say diplomats, while the Conservative government of David Cameron has promised to instruct ambassadors to push for British business in their respective countries.
Controversy has surrounded the UK’s foreign trade with questionable regimes however, with British-made weapons discovered to have been used in the brutal suppression of popular protests in Bahrain this year.
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DVB news - Min Ko Naing moved to Burma’s Insein jail
By MIN LWIN
Published: 18 November 2011
Min Ko Naing, the jailed student leader who played a pivotal role in the 1988 and 2007 uprisings in Burma, has been moved from his cell in the remote Kengtung prison toRangoon’s notorious Insein jail.
It follows similar transfers of other renowned political prisoners in the country in recent days as speculation mounts that the government will announce an amnesty of high-profile inmates.
Rumours are circulating Rangoon however that Min Ko Naing will be redirected from Insein to another jail. If true, it suggests he may not be included in the release, which had been originally mooted for Monday this week.
Also included in prison transfers in recent days are Shan leader Khun Htun Oo and prominent monk Ashin Gambira. Both have been relocated from jails near to the China border to ones closer to home.
Rights groups say the sentencing of inmates to lengthy terms in prisons far removed from their families is tantamount to psychological torture, an issue compounded by the fact that visiting relatives are often a prisoner’s chief source of medicine.
Gambira’s sister told DVB last week that she feared the 32-year-old was in mental and physical decline following bouts of torture and maltreatment since his sentencing in 2008. He is said to be suffering from fits.
Min Ko Naing was arrested along with other 88 Generation Students’ leaders in August 2007 for staging protests against a hike in fuel prices that developed into the infamous September 2007 uprising. He is serving a 65-year sentence.
His group, known as the 88 Generation Students, earlier this month announced that it may seek official status as a political or philanthropic organisation.
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Saturday, 19 November 2011
BURMA RELATED NEWS - NOVEMBER 18, 2011
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