WASHINGTON - The United States restored full diplomatic relations with Myanmar yesterday, hours after the new civilian government took a major step in its rapid campaign of political and economic changes, releasing many of its most prominent political prisoners.
The announcement is the latest in a series of cautiously choreographed steps that have eased tensions between the United States and Myanmar and that could remake US diplomacy in Asia, where the Obama administration has sought to refocus its foreign policy.
President Obama, in a statement, welcomed the presidential pardon and release yesterday of 651 prisoners, including prominent leaders of student protests against the country’s military rulers in 1988, a signal uprising.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who in December became the first secretary of state to visit Myanmar since 1955, later announced that the United States would send a US ambassador back to the country for the first time in more than two decades.
The administration is also considering additional steps to reward the reforms already announced and to encourage more.
The United States withdrew its ambassador from Myanmar following the election of 1990, which was won by Suu Kyi’s party, though the military government never recognized the results.
It never severed relations fully, as with countries like Cuba, Iran, or North Korea, but downgraded the diplomatic status of its embassy.
In remarks at the State Department, Clinton said that the administration would soon nominate and seek Senate confirmation of an ambassador - and invite Myanmar to send one to Washington.
“An American ambassador will help strengthen our efforts to support the historic and promising steps that are now unfolding,’’ she said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France lauded the prisoner releases and spoke to Suu Kyi by telephone yesterday, his office said, and praised her “political courage.’’
The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, is to visit Myanmar tomorrow and Monday and is to give Suu Kyi France’s highest award, the Legion of Honor. She will receive the rank of commander, the third highest of five ranks.
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Related: AmeriKa Romances Myanmar
"Thousands cheer Suu Kyi in Myanmar; Populist hailed in first tour since party registered" by Aye Aye Win | Associated Press, January 30, 2012
DAWEI, Myanmar - Euphoric supporters waved opposition-party flags and offered yellow garlands. They lined crumbling roads for miles and climbed atop trees, cars, and roofs as Aung San Suu Kyi spoke at impromptu rallies yesterday. Some cried as her convoy passed.
Cheered by tens of thousands, the 66-year-old opposition leader electrified the repressive political landscape in this country formerly known as Burma during her first political tour of the countryside since her party registered to run in a historic election that could see her elected to Parliament for the first time.
“We will bring democracy to the country,’’ Suu Kyi said to roaring applause as her voice boomed through loudspeakers from the balcony of a National League for Democracy office in the southern coastal district of Dawei. “We will bring rule of law . . . and we will see to it that repressive laws are repealed.’’
Suu Kyi’s campaign and the by-elections that are due April 1 are being watched closely by the international community, which sees the vote as a crucial test of whether the military-backed government is really committed to reform.
Did you know, Suu Kyi is Burmese for CIA?
The mere fact that Suu Kyi was able to speak openly in public in Dawei - and her supporters were able to greet her en masse without fear of reprisal - was proof of dramatic progress itself. Such scenes would have been unthinkable just a year ago, when the long-ruling junta was still in power and demonstrations were all but banned.
“People had been afraid to discuss politics for so long,’’ said environmental activist Aung Zaw Hein. “Now that she’s visiting, the political spirit of people has been awakened.’’
So when you going to wake up, 'murka?
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"Myanmar signs cease-fire with rebels" new york times, January 13, 2012
BANGKOK - The government of Myanmar signed a cease-fire agreement yesterday with ethnic Karen rebels who have been fighting for greater autonomy since the former Burma gained independence from Britain more than six decades ago, according to reports from Myanmar.
“A cease-fire agreement has been signed,’’ said U Aung Min, a government negotiator.
A collection of brutal civil wars has continued since independence in 1948, and an end to the fighting has been an important demand of the international community - and of the political opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi - as Myanmar opens the door to improved relations with the outside world.
These guys smell like CIA to me.
Successive military governments have justified repression by saying strong measures were needed amid challenges from ethnic fighters. The conflicts with the Karen and other ethnic groups have driven hundreds of thousands of people to take refuge in camps just across the border in Thailand. Human rights groups have documented military abuses including rapes, forced labor, and the conscription of child soldiers.
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"Myanmar rebels deny cease-fire deal" by Thomas Fuller | New York Times, February 05, 2012
TAY BAY HTA, Myanmar - When Myanmar announced a cease-fire last month with one of the country’s most prominent rebel groups, images of longstanding enemies shaking hands across a table were beamed around the globe and trumpeted as evidence of further reconciliation in a country emerging from decades of military dictatorship and ethnic strife.
Now, three weeks after the deal was announced, the leadership of the rebel group is denying that a cease-fire was signed....
Reconciliation with the country’s armed ethnic groups has been one of the conditions that the United States and other Western countries have put on Myanmar before economic sanctions and other punitive measures are lifted.
The day after the cease-fire announcement, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the United States would reward “action with action’’ and announced that Washington would appoint an ambassador to Myanmar after more than a decade without one. She called the cease-fire an “important step forward’’ for the country.
The events surrounding the cease-fire announcement remain murky and appear to be a mix of misunderstanding and backpedaling by the rebel group’s leadership....
Top officials of the Karen National Union, a cash-strapped organization with a ragtag army of several thousand troops, acknowledge that they underestimated opposition from the organization’s rank and file to a deal with the government.
“The grass roots are very much concerned that it went too quickly - they thought it was a sellout,’’ said Saw David Tharckabaw, the vice president of the Karen National Union and chief of its foreign affairs section. “There is a feeling that we have been cheated.’’
The organization must now move more slowly in dealing with the government, Tharckabaw said.
He portrayed the cease-fire announcement in January as part of a public relations campaign by the government for the benefit of foreign nations.
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I don't know what to make of the mixed messages, do you?
