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As Obama Visits, Myanmar Commits to More Reforms As Obama Visits, Myanmar Commits to More Reforms
(35 minutes later)
YANGON, Myanmar — President Obama headed to Myanmar early Monday for a visit highlighting the country’s emergence from decades of repressive military rule as the government made a series of last-minute commitments to further reform. YANGON, Myanmar — President Obama journeyed to this storied tropical outpost of pagodas and jungles on Monday to “extend the hand of friendship” as a land long tormented by repression and poverty begins to throw off military rule and emerge from decades of isolation.
President Thein Sein, the former general who has led Myanmar’s opening, announced that the country would release more prisoners, allow more access to international human rights organizations and take “decisive action” to stop violence against the minority Muslim population. Mr. Obama arrived here as the first sitting American president to visit Myanmar with the hope of solidifying the stunning changes that have transformed this Southeast Asian country and encouraging additional progress toward a more democratic system. With the promise of more financial assistance, Mr. Obama vowed to “support you every step of the way.”
Mr. Obama, for his part, planned to announce that he would send a new United States Agency for International Development mission to Myanmar, also known as Burma, and commit $170 million over two years to projects there. He defended his decision to travel to Myanmar against criticism from human rights activists who called it a premature reward for incomplete reform. The president was greeted on a mild but muggy day by students in white and green uniforms who lined the road from the airport — and by further promises of reform by the government, which announced a series of specific commitments regarding the release of political prisoners and the end of ethnic violence. Though Mr. Obama planned to stay just six hours, his visit was seen as a validation of a new era.
“This is not an endorsement of the Burmese government,” he told reporters here in Bangkok. “This is an acknowledgment that there is a process under way inside that country that even a year and a half, two years ago, nobody foresaw.” He made a point of not only scheduling a meeting at the government headquarters with President Thein Sein but also a personal pilgrimage to the home of the opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, where she was confined under house arrest for most of two decades before her release two years ago. Amid the manicured lawn and well-tended garden outside the elegant two-story lakeside house, the president and the Nobel-winning dissident planned to stand side by side celebrating change that once seemed unimaginable.
He added: “I don’t think anybody’s under any illusion that Burma’s arrived, that they’re where they need to be.” While local leaders attribute the changes so far to internal factors and decisions, Mr. Obama was eager to claim a measure of credit. He has played nursemaid to the opening of Myanmar, formerly and still known by many as Burma, by sending the first American ambassador in 22 years, easing sanctions and meeting with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in Washington.
During his six-hour stop in Myanmar, Mr. Obama will meet with Mr. Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader, then give a speech at the University of Yangon defining his hopes for the nation. Under Mr. Thein Sein, the country has begun releasing political prisoners and easing restrictions on the news media. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest and was elected to a seat in Parliament. But more than 200 political prisoners remain in custody, and the government continues to wage a brutal campaign against insurgents in Kachin State. Later Monday he was to announce the return of the United States Agency for International Development along with $170 million for projects over the next two years, noting that in his inaugural address he had vowed to reach out to those “willing to unclench your fist.”
Human Rights Watch said Sunday that satellite imagery showed violence, arson and extensive destruction of homes in Rohingya Muslim areas in Arakan State by ethnic Arakans in October, which the group said was carried out with the support of state security forces and local government officials. “So today, I have come to keep my promise and extend the hand of friendship,” read the text of prepared remarks to be delivered at the University of Yangon. He promised to “help rebuild an economy” and develop new institutions that can be sustained. “The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished — they must become a shining north star for all this nation’s people.”
State television in Yangon reported that Mr. Thein Sein had ordered the release of 66 prisoners before Mr. Obama’s arrival, but it was not immediately clear whether any were political prisoners, The Associated Press reported. Although human rights activists criticized his visit as premature because of remaining political prisoners and unsettled violence racking parts of the country, Mr. Obama used the occasion to nudge Myanmar to move further. He noted that democracy is about constraints on power, pointing to his own limits as president.
A statement later released by Mr. Thein Sein’s office said the government would “devise a transparent mechanism to review remaining prisoner cases of concern” by the end of this year. The International Committee of the Red Cross will be allowed to resume prisoner visits and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to set up a Myanmar office. “That is how you must reach for the future you deserve,” he said in the prepared remarks, “a future where a single prisoner of conscience is one too many and the law is stronger than any leader, where no child is made to be a soldier and no woman is exploited, where national security is strengthened by a military that serves under civilians and a constitution guarantees that only those who are elected by the people may govern.”
The government said it would “continue to pursue a durable cease-fire in Kachin State” and “take decisive action to prevent violent attacks against civilians” elsewhere. It pledged to adopt international standards on transparent government, nonproliferation and human trafficking. Under Mr. Thein Sein, a former general, many political prisoners have been released and media restrictions have been eased. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, was allowed to run in elections and she won a seat in parliament. Even before Air Force One landed here, Mr. Thein Sein offered a further gesture.
John Sifton of Human Rights Watch said that if those promises were kept, it would “be a huge step in the right direction for the people” and future of Myanmar. His office announced that the government would set up a process to review the fate of remaining political prisoners by the end of the year, allow international human rights organizations more access to prisons and conflict zones and take “decisive action” to stop violence against the country’s minority Muslim population.
More than 200 political prisoners remain in custody, and the government has waged a brutal campaign against insurgents in Kachin State. Human Rights Watch said Sunday that satellite imagery showed violence, arson and extensive destruction of homes in Rohingya Muslim areas in Arakan State by ethnic Arakans in October, which it said was carried out with support of state security forces and local government officials.
John Sifton of Human Rights Watch said that if the promises Mr. Thein Sein announced Monday were kept, it would “be a huge step in the right direction for the people” and future of Myanmar, although he maintained it could have been achieved without rewarding the government with a presidential visit so soon.
During a stop in Thailand on Sunday, Mr. Obama defended his decision to travel to Myanmar. “This is not an endorsement of the Burmese government,” he said. “This is an acknowledgment that there is a process under way inside that country that even a year and a half, two years ago, nobody foresaw.”
He added: “I don’t think anybody’s under any illusion that Burma’s arrived, that they’re where they need to be. On the other hand, if we waited to engage until they achieved a perfect democracy, my suspicion is we’d be waiting an awful long time.”
Myanmar is the second stop on Mr. Obama’s three-country swing through Southeast Asia. He spent Sunday in Bangkok, visiting America’s oldest ally in the region, and planned to head next to Cambodia for summit meetings with leaders from throughout the region. It will also be the first time an American president has visited that country, but there are few of the same stirrings of reform in Cambodia, which is dominated by Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former Khmer Rouge commander.
Even in Thailand, considered the most modern and sophisticated of the three countries on Mr. Obama’s itinerary, the state of the country’s political system has been precarious, particularly since Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was ousted in a military coup in 2006. His sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, became prime minister last year, and Mr. Obama praised her for her support of democracy. Human rights groups, however, still identify problems including security force abuses, restrictions on free speech and the failure to protect a large population of refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers.
Mr. Obama made no mention of that in his remarks to reporters in Bangkok and addressed it only when a Thai reporter asked about problems with freedom in his country. The president offered no criticism of his host.
“Democracy is not something that is static,” he said. “It’s something that we constantly have to work on.”
The embrace of Myanmar fits into a larger effort by the Obama administration to reorient American foreign policy more toward Asia and to engage the countries on China’s periphery at a time of nervousness in the region about Beijing’s increasing assertiveness. Myanmar was for years locked solidly in China’s orbit, but its move toward the West in the last two years has been driven at least partly by resentment of Beijing’s rapacious exploitation of natural resources here.
For Mr. Obama, it also represents one of the few relatively unvarnished success stories in the democratic movement that he can point to during his time in office. By contrast, the Arab Spring set of revolutions in the Middle East have now become bogged down in more ambiguous outcomes as in Libya, where Islamic extremists attacked a United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi in September.
None of that anti-American sentiment was on display here Monday. American flags flew across the city and the government laid out a warm welcome for the visiting president. For six hours, both he and his hosts were to focus on progress with the understanding that hard work still remained.