The concern is nothing but a cudgel to be used against Myanmar to prevent drift back toward China; otherwise, the U.N. and U.S. would be screaming at the top of their lungs over the displaced Palestinian population dotting the Middle Eastern nations.
"Obama seeks to push Myanmar toward democracy" by Mark Landler and Thomas Fuller | New York Times November 14, 2014
(Groan)
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — Faced with signs of regression in a country whose democratic transition he has claimed as a diplomatic coup, President Obama on Thursday prodded Myanmar’s president to keep on track its transformation from a reclusive military dictatorship to a fledgling democracy.
In a meeting with President Thein Sein, Obama encouraged him to pursue reforms of the political system and the constitution. And Obama warned that he needed to end the systematic persecution of Muslims in western Myanmar that has generated outrage worldwide.
That is part of the club, as suspected.
“We recognize that change is hard and you do not always move in a straight line,” Obama said after the meeting, citing the violence against Muslims and the failure to change the constitution.
Thein Sein, a retired general who has carved out a political career as a reformer, said, “We’re in the process of addressing these concerns. We definitely need to address these concerns.”
If it were not for an Asian regional summit meeting being held here this week, the president would not be visiting this remote Southeast Asian capital, especially just two years after his last visit to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
Related: Obama in Myanmar
But since he is here, the White House is refocusing on a diplomatic work in progress.
Otherwise known as gumming up the works.
Even the Japanese want us out.
On Friday, Obama will meet with the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as with young Myanmar citizens, to encourage them to retain hope in their country’s struggle to shed decades of military dictatorship and to settle years of conflict with ethnic minorities.
“Parts of the reform effort have stalled, parts have moved forward, and parts, we’ve seen, have even moved backward, so it’s a mixed picture,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser involved in the opening to Myanmar.
The uneven pace of reform, Rhodes and other administration officials said, argues for continued US engagement, particularly as Myanmar plans for elections next year and debate an overhaul of their constitution to reduce the dominant role of the military.
While the United States has suspended sanctions against Myanmar, they remain on the books, and Rhodes noted that two weeks ago the Treasury Department blacklisted a senior Myanmar political figure with ties to the military, which it said was impeding reforms.
“We need to be smartly and carefully engaged to promote change from the inside,” said Derek Mitchell, the US ambassador to Myanmar. “We have no illusions about the challenges.”
Neither do I. They have all been shattered.
US officials are applying the strongest pressure over Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslims, which many in the majority Buddhist population regard as interlopers from Bangladesh. Since sectarian rioting two years ago that left more than 150 dead, tens of thousands have been herded into internment camps, where authorities demand that they identify themselves as Bengalis, often beating them if they refuse.
Not to minimize it, but that all the dead? US has wiped out 6x as many in three months of work in Iraq and Syria. The other description is to call up certain images in your mind and thus attaching them to Myanmar.
As a measure of the deep discrimination the Muslim minority faces, officials Thursday repeated their position that members of the minority had no right to call themselves Rohingya and called on the outside world to use the term Bengali.
The government expressed “deep disappointment” that the secretary-general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, had used the term Rohingya during a media briefing, saying it would “inflame local sentiment.” Obama used the word freely in his meeting with Thein Sein, a senior US official said.
So it was more than the gum-chewing that offended, 'eh?
The bias against the Rohingya is so broad in Myanmar that even Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate and human-rights hero, has declined to speak up in their defense. Officials said the subject probably would come up in Obama’s meeting with her Friday, which will be held at her lakeside residence in Yangon, once known as Rangoon.
Maybe they can go for a swim together.
“We believe that all leaders across the political spectrum can play a role,” Rhodes said. “Her voice is obviously critically important.”
Being a CIA asset and all.
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"Obama affirms support for democracy in Myanmar" by Mark Landler | New York Times November 15, 2014
(Groan)
YANGON, Myanmar — The last time President Obama met with Aung San Suu Kyi, in 2012, it was in the glow of Myanmar’s opening to the West — a historic turn toward democracy that handed Obama a diplomatic victory and catapulted Suu Kyi, the prodemocracy icon, from house arrest to the political front lines.
On Friday, the two leaders met here again, but this time as battle-scarred political veterans. Both are struggling with setbacks in the rough-and-tumble politics of their home countries; both face doubts about their leadership and a dimming of their star power.
See why I'm groaning?
Obama reassured Suu Kyi of America’s support for her and for Myanmar’s steps toward reform, despite evidence of backsliding in its transition from military dictatorship.
There it is! Must have warmed to that Chinese-sponsored trade zone.
Suu Kyi tried to smooth over suggestions of friction with the Obama administration after recent remarks in which she said the United States had been too optimistic about the progress of Myanmar’s transition.
“Please don’t worry,” she said to reporters in the manicured garden of her lakeside villa here, with Obama beside her. “I always warn against over-optimism because it can lead to complacency. The reform process is going through, let us say, a bumpy path.”
The president acknowledged that Myanmar, also known as Burma, was falling short in several key respects, including its refusal to amend a constitutional provision that makes Suu Kyi ineligible to run for president, as well as its unwillingness to curb the violence against the Muslim Rohingya minority in the country’s west.
I object to the reference to the English colonial title when the nation has gone independent and is now recognized as Myanmar. If I didn't know any better, I'd say the supremacist organ that is the New York Times is anti-Asian!
Myanmar’s journey to democracy is “by no means complete or irreversible,” he said.
And yet, in his meetings with government officials, opposition leaders, and young people, Obama expressed confidence that the country will overcome its troubles, if only because Myanmar’s young will reject compromises made by their elders on politics, ethnic conflicts, and climate change.
Then they get beat down in the streets when they Occupy, remember?
“It’s important, I think, that even as we engage with countries that are less open or less democratic, that we also continue to apply constructive criticism,” Obama told young people at a town hall-style meeting at the University of Yangon, where he bantered with them on technology and religion. “Sometimes that’s hard to do.”
Especially when you are a discredited hypocrite and war criminal.
At the university, Obama appeared to be in his element, alternatively teasing and lecturing the audience members, handpicked by the White House from across Southeast Asia.
OMG, it was as phony as the Bush staging and scripts, a totally steaming stinker of a psyop prop job.
Above all, he seemed to treasure his rock star reception and joked that he did he not get that kind of treatment at home.
He can shove the self-pitying shit. I have no more patience for that, nor do I have patience for a narcissistic psychopath as this man appears to be.
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Yeah, poor Obummer:
"Rohingya refugees seek hope in Obama’s visit to Myanmar" by Jessica Meyers | Globe Staff November 13, 2014
NASHUA — The worsening situation of the Rohingya, a Muslim minority long persecuted by Buddhist extremists and denied citizenship by the government, throws President Obama into an awkward position this week as he makes his second trip to the Southeast Asian nation, where the crisis threatens democratic efforts and challenges what the administration considers one of its key foreign policy accomplishments.
At least 14,500 Rohingya have attempted the treacherous boat ride to Thailand in the last month, according to The Arakan Project, a group that tracks Rohingya refugees. Around 140,000, including Abdul Shukur’s family, live in gritty internment camps on Myanmar’s western coast.
The 25 families in Nashua, who make up the largest Rohingya community in New England, share a similar story of concern and helplessness. They fled to Thailand and Malaysia years ago, following a refugee trail that led them to Nashua. But many of their mothers, sisters, and sons remain trapped in a society that does not appear to want them.
Like Palestinians in so many places.
Where is the U.N. outcry and outrage of the "global community?"
Obama’s visit is absorbing the attention of lawmakers, human rights advocates, and the cluster of refugees in this city just north of Massachusetts.
He seems to be absorbing a lot of my time, too.
*********
Myanmar, strategically located between India and China, could prove to be a significant regional ally for the United States. Formerly known as Burma, this country of 53 million people represents one of the world’s last untapped markets for everything from telecom service to fast food.
Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton nurtured a relationship with Myanmar in 2010 when it began to open after almost half a century of repressive military rule.
I can't imagine that will help her presidential campaign then.
Obama became the first sitting US president to visit the country in 2012 and praised the country’s democratic reforms, including the release of Nobel Peace Price laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
His current trip, in which he will attend two summits, appears less hopeful.
A parliamentary committee in June voted against changing the constitution so Suu Kyi could run for president next year. The government jailed journalists in July for reporting on an alleged chemical weapons factory. Officials prohibited Rohingya from participating in a recent census and are considering a bill that would ban interfaith marriage.
Related: Myanmar is Making Chemical Weapons
I will do you one better, and who does that marriage ban remind you of, huh?
The Myanmar government has not authorized the return of Doctors Without Borders, an international aid group that provides health care to Rohingya. Officials kicked the group out of the country’s western region in February.
Secretary of State John Kerry made little public mention of the Rohingya issue in his August visit and cautioned patience toward the country’s monumental shift.
“You don’t just achieve results by the consequence of looking at somebody and ordering them to do it or telling them to do it or else,” he told reporters in Myanmar’s capital this summer.
Since when? After Syria's chemical weapons were removed?
But outside pressure has increased.
Obama called Myanmar President Thein Sein last month and stressed the need to “support the civil and political rights of the Rohingya population,” according to the White House. In a Wednesday interview with The Irrawaddy, a Myanmar magazine, Obama admitted slow progress. He echoed concern over the treatment of Rohingya and said he plans to emphasize that “fundamental human rights and freedoms of all people should be respected.”
The stuff that comes out of his war-starting, torturing, drone missile dropping, air striking mouth is beyond dignity at a certain point.
Like Bush, I will need to stop listening to or reading about this man.
Myanmar’s latest proposed policy is viewed by the Rohingya as outright persecution. Called the Rakhine Action Plan, it demands Rohingya in Rakhine State prove their residence for more than six-decades to gain a form of citizenship. Otherwise, they must relocate to camps and await possible deportation. The western region, where around one million Rohingya live, faces the greatest tensions.
Looks like an immigration issue to me, and how can the U.S. criticize?
Human Rights Watch has labeled it “a blueprint for permanent segregation.”
Israel.
Fortify Rights, an advocacy group based in Bangkok, released a report last week accusing the country’s security forces of profiting off the exodus.
“Things are getting so bad that I don’t think this administration can any longer turn a blind eye or say things will get better,” said Representative James McGovern, a Worcester Democrat who helped organize a letter to the White House signed by 40 House lawmakers. “There has to be a very direct message to the [Myanmar] government there that there is a consequence to this.”
What is he suggesting other than war?
The Myanmar embassy did not respond to requests for comment. Officials have denied responsibility for violence against Rohingya and pitched the plan as a means to reconstruct the conflict-ridden state.
A 1982 law labels Rohingya as Muslim immigrants from Bangladesh and bars them from full citizenship.
Hope for any real change relies on both the country’s leadership and its opposition addressing widespread ethnic conflict.
“No Burmese politician has wanted to get their hands into this one,” said Ernest Bower, a Southeast Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That’s really part of the tragedy.”
It's Myanmar, but who cares, right?
I mean, the personnel the Globe turns to for expert advise....
New England’s Rohingya community watches from Nashua, a spot refugees landed largely through the assistance of a Lutheran social service agency.
Three Rohingya men, who range from early-30s to mid-60s, live in an apartment off Main Street where a curtain separates one bedroom. A plastic map of the United States hangs on the wall, near a series of Arabic sayings.
Terrorists?
They see a bigger role for the president.
“Mr. Obama, pressure President Thein Sein to recognize the ethnicities of Burma and let them go to their villages,’” Mohamad Sideik, who has not seen his wife or daughter in 16 years, said through a translator.
The men talk occasionally about the jungle trek they took to Thailand and the family they had to leave behind. Only one understands English.
Burma Task Force USA, an organization set up last year to assist Burmese Muslims, estimates 600 Rohingya live in the United States.
They have converted a small building near the railroad tracks here into a mosque, but can afford an imam only once a week.
Abdul Shukur, her husband, and son live in a sparse apartment above the men.
The boy was born in Malaysia and chats on the phone to a grandmother he has not met. Abdul Shukur does not tell him that his cousins cannot go to school or that she spent two years in prison in her first attempt to flee.
She does not tell him they may never go back.
I wonder what Palestinian mothers in refugee camps tell their kids.
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You know, if the U.N. were so concerned....
"Myanmar troubles jeopardize a big Obama goal" by Julie Pace | Associated Press November 13, 2014
That's the consequence: another foreign policy failure of this administration.
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — For President Obama, Myanmar’s stalled progress on promised political and economic reforms is jeopardizing what was to be an achievement for his foreign policy legacy.
The multiyear campaign against CIA-created ISIS that he is handing off to his successor is his legacy. That's it. The rest is utter failure. Sorry.
Obama arrived in Myanmar’s capital of Naypyitaw on Wednesday amid persistent questions about whether the government would follow through on its pledges — and whether the United States made too many overtures to the long-isolated country too soon. Myanmar won wide sanctions relief from Obama after its sudden and unexpected shift from a half-century of military rule, but there’s little certainty about the country’s future.
‘‘Progress has not come as fast as many had hoped when the transition began,’’ Obama said in an interview with Myanmar’s The Irrawaddy magazine. ‘‘In some areas, there has been a slowdown in reforms and even some steps backward.’’
White House officials say Obama has always been realistic about the challenges ahead for Myanmar, a country that in many cases lacks the infrastructure and capacity to enact the reforms its leaders have outlined. But critics of the administration’s policy say the United States gave up its leverage too quickly by rewarding the government for promises rather than results.
‘‘With so many avenues for pressure lost, it can indeed seem like the US doesn’t have a lot of cards left to play,’’ said John Sifton, the Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
Critics also contend that the president got caught up in the notion that opening Myanmar to the outside world would be a central part of his legacy as America’s self-proclaimed Pacific president.
I'm sure the Pacific loved hearing that.
A successful democratic transition would fit neatly into Obama’s broader Asia strategy, which includes deepening US political and economic partnerships in the region, particularly with countries that share America’s values.
What exactly are those values? Torture? Aggressive war based on lies and bombing from on high? Gluttonous greed by money-hungry bankers?
The diplomatic pivot to Asia has raised concerns in China — Myanmar’s neighbor and largest trading partner — that the United States is seeking to contain Chinese influence.
Here we go again, yup.
Despite Obama’s hopes for Myanmar, optimism within the administration has faded somewhat since the president’s trip here in 2012. He was the first sitting US president to visit the country, and aides still fondly recall the massive crowds that lined the streets to watch his motorcade pass.
Now he's getting preprogrammed crowds to feed his ego.
Yet there’s little question Myanmar has failed to make good on the promises its leaders made to Obama during that short visit.
Israel never does, and it's no big deal then.
More than any other issue, White House officials say Myanmar’s persecution of minority Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state threatens to alienate the United States and other nations that have been drawn to the country.
I'm sure it won't be alienating their biggest trading partner, and maybe even Russia could step in and help.
Attacks by Buddhist extremists since mid-2012 have left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims dead and 140,000 trapped in dire conditions in camps.
White House officials have acknowledged that Obama almost certainly wouldn’t be visiting Myanmar at this point had the country not been hosting the Asia-Pacific summits that he had pledged to attend.
Beyond concerns about the Rakhine state, the United States is warily watching the lead-up to Myanmar’s presidential election next year.
Uh-huh.
Another lever to use against Myanmar.
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UPDATES:
"Ousted aid group returns to Myanmar" Associated Press January 22, 2015
YANGON, Myanmar — The international aid group Doctors Without Borders announced Wednesday that it has returned to Myanmar’s troubled state of Rakhine nine months after it was ordered out by the government for hiring members of the long-persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority.
The announcement follows a visit by UN human rights envoy Yanghee Lee to the state, which has been ripped apart by sectarian violence since the predominantly Buddhist country started moving from a half-century of military rule to democracy four years ago.
Up to 280 people have been killed and another 140,000 forced to flee their homes, most of them Rohingya who now live in crowded camps outside the state capital, Sittwe. Unable to leave without paying bribes to authorities, they have limited access to health care, education, or jobs.
Doctors Without Borders says before it was ousted, it provided services to 700,000 people across Rakhine, the second-poorest state in Myanmar. But Buddhist Rakhine extremists resented the services given to the Rohingya.
Soon after the agency was expelled, anti-Rohingya mobs attacked the offices and residences of UN agencies, OXFAM, Save the Children, Solidarities International, and others in Sittwe, forcing aid groups to evacuate almost 1,000 personnel.
Lee said the situation for the displaced Rohingya remains dire and humanitarian access is minimal.
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"Myanmar rebels accused of stalling deal" AP January 23, 2015
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s government has accused ethnic rebels of trying to scuttle a nationwide peace deal as tensions soar in the northern state of Kachin, where an activist said sporadic clashes between the army and insurgents have trapped more than 1,800 villagers.
Meanwhile, emotions were running high in the state capital, Myitkyina, where a funeral is planned Friday for two ethnic Kachin volunteer teachers, said Tin Soe, an official with the opposition National League for Democracy party. The United States has called on authorities to investigate allegations by activists that the women were raped and killed by army soldiers.
The government has been seeking a nationwide peace pact following more than six decades of armed conflict with ethnic minority groups seeking greater autonomy. More than a dozen armed groups have agreed to sign a cease-fire, but insurgents in Kachin and Shan states have so far held out, saying they want the right to self-determination.
Information Minister Ye Htut said the government wants to reach a deal by Feb. 12, the day when a group of ethnic leaders signed an agreement 68 years ago with independence hero General Aung San as part of efforts to break free from their colonial British overseers.
He accused members of the Kachin Independence Army of trying to derail those efforts by briefly abducting a state minister earlier this month, detaining three policemen, and carrying out several attacks in a jade-mining region that remains largely under their control.
These are “deliberate acts of provocation against the army with the intention to harm the peace negotiations,” he said on his Facebook page Monday.
Rebels and civilians in Kachin have blamed the government.
KIA spokesman La Nan said his group is committed to the peace process and accused Myanmar’s army of escalating military operations and systematically attacking Kachin outposts since 2013.
Tin Soe said more than 1,800 people have been trapped for nearly a week in the village of Kansi because of sporadic clashes, a claim denied by Ye Htut.
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