Clinton to Visit Myanmar as Dissident Leader Rejoins Politics
By JACKIE CALMES and THOMAS FULLER,
BALI, Indonesia — Hours before Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s most prominent democracy campaigner, announced her return to formal politics on Friday, President Obama disclosed that he was sending Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on a visit there next month, the first by a secretary of state in more than 50 years.
Mr. Obama spoke shortly before Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a symbol of perseverance and democracy in Myanmar, declared that she and her party would rejoin the political system backed by the military leadership that persecuted her for more than two decades.
Her decision was seen as a milestone in reconciliation efforts between the military-backed government and the country’s democracy movement whose members were jailed and repressed during years of authoritarian rule. The party’s decision was unanimous, according to a statement.
Mr. Obama made known his decision to send Mrs. Clinton at a gathering in Bali where nations from Southeast Asia were meeting on Friday with leaders of lands from across the Pacific Rim, including the United States, China and Japan.
“For decades Americans have been deeply concerned about the denial of basic human rights for the Burmese people,” Mr. Obama said. “The persecution of democratic reformers, the brutality shown toward ethnic minorities and the concentration of power in the hands of a few military leaders has challenged our conscience and isolated Burma from the United States and much of the world.”
But he added that ”after years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress in these last several weeks” as the president and Parliament in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, have taken steps toward reform.
“Of course there’s far more to be done,” Mr. Obama said.
On Thursday night, while Air Force One was flying from Australia to Indonesia for the East Asia summit, the president spoke with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, a senior official said.
“They 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,” the official said.
At the headquarters of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, her announcement on Friday was greeted by cheers.
“Mother Suu, we support you!” the crowd chanted, using the party leader’s nickname, according to a witness. Others depicted her decision as portentous.
“The pace of political change in Burma has exceeded all expectations,” Thant Myint-U, a historian and former United Nations official. “We’re on the verge of a historic compromise.”
Mr. Obama will see President U Thein Sein of Myanmar at Friday’s broader meeting of Pacific Rim leaders but will not have a one-on-one encounter.
The decision to send Mrs. Clinton came shortly after Myanmar took another step away from its diplomatic isolation on Thursday when its neighbors agreed to let the country, which had been run for decades by the military, take on the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2014.
Myanmar has long coveted the rotating chairmanship of the organization, known as Asean. The country renounced its turn in 2006 in the face of foreign pressure over human rights abuses.
“It’s not about the past, it’s about the future, what leaders are doing now,” the Indonesian foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, told reporters in Bali about the chairmanship. “We’re trying to ensure the process of change continues.”
Myanmar inaugurated a new civilian system this year after decades of military rule. The new government, led by Mr. Thein Sein, has freed a number of political prisoners, taken steps to liberalize the nation’s heavily state-controlled economy and made overtures to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel peace laureate who was released from house arrest last year.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party won elections in 1990, but the result was ignored by the military.
Jackie Calmes reported from Bali, Indonesia, and Thomas Fuller from Bangkok.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 18, 2011
Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this article gave the wrong city as Myanmar’s capital. It is Naypyidaw, not Yangon.
Credit : New York Times
