US senator visits Suu Kyi
Behind the Scenes of Webb’s Visit
Thai call for ASEAN appeal to Myanmar to pardon Suu Kyi gets backing
Yangon, Myanmar: Senator meets Suu Kyi, wins U.S. man’s release
Suu Kyi still detained but American freed
Senator Webb leaves Myanmar with American, offering an opening
Troubled American leaves, with Suu Kyi still detained
A woman of gentle steel
===ncgub=info=unit================
===ncgub=info=unit============

====
US senator visits Suu Kyi

Published: 16/08/2009 at 04:50 AM

Rangoon (AFP) – US Senator Jim Webb met Burmese military ruler Than Shwe and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday after securing the release of the US citizen jailed for visiting Suu Kyi’s house in May.

John Yettaw, bound for Bangkok Sunday afternoon.

Webb, a Democrat with close links to US President Barack Obama, became the first official US visitor to hold talks with the reclusive Than Shwe, encountering the regime’s supremo in his bunker-like capital, Naypyidaw, officials said.

Webb then flew to Rangoon to meet Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi at a government guesthouse near her home – her first meeting with a foreign official since her house arrest was extended by 18 months earlier this week.

Webb’s office later issued a statement in Washington saying he had secured an agreement from the junta to release John Yettaw, who was jailed for seven years this week over an incident in which he swam to Suu Kyi’s lakeside home.

“I am grateful to the Myanmar government,” Webb was quoted as saying, using the military dictatorship’s name for Burma..

“It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future,” Webb said.

The statement said Yettaw would be officially deported Sunday morning, adding that “Senator Webb will bring him out of the country on a military aircraft that is returning to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon.”

A Burmese official confirmed Yettaw’s deportation.

“Yettaw will be deported and leave with Webb,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Webb had also urged the Burmese military regime to free Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest, the senator’s office said.

She was driven to the meeting with Webb from her crumbling mansion in a convoy comprising her car and several police vehicles, witnesses said. She left the guesthouse about 45 minutes later.

The Burmese regime sparked international outrage when a court in the army-ruled nation convicted Yettaw and Suu Kyi over the May incident in which the American swam uninvited to her home.

According to earlier reports, Webb was not due to meet Yettaw, a diabetic and epileptic former military veteran who is being held at Rangoon’s notorious Insein Prison. Yettaw was hospitalised earlier this month after suffering a series of fits.

Dissident groups have warned that Webb’s visit could be manipulated by the Burmese government to “endorse” its treatment of Suu Kyi and the more than 2,100 other political prisoners in the country’s jails.

The UN Security Council issued a watered-down statement Thursday expressing “serious concern” about her detention, while the European Union the same day extended sanctions against the junta, including the judges in the trial.

Critics have accused the junta of trumping up the charges to keep Suu Kyi locked up during elections next year, and of using the polls themselves to legitimise their grip on power since 1962.

The junta refused to recognise the NLD’s victory in elections in 1990.

Both the White House and State Department welcomed Webb’s trip, even though it was officially being made in a private capacity by the senator, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs.

The Obama administration said earlier this year that it was reviewing his predecessor George W Bush’s tough stance on Burma, even though Obama recently renewed sanctions against the regime.

Webb, a gruff Vietnam veteran, said in April that Washington should seek “constructive” engagement towards Burma with the aim of lifting sanctions, while admitting in July that the Suu Kyi trial made it more difficult.

Webb, 63, has written six novels and served in the late 1980s as secretary of the US Navy under Republican President Ronald Reagan.

Than Shwe has, meanwhile, been a long-term bete noire of the United States. A former postman, he has ruled Burma since 1992 with an iron-fist, ruthlessly suppressing his rivals. http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/151862/us-senator-visits-suu-kyi
===ncgub=info=unit================
Behind the Scenes of Webb’s Visit
By AUNG ZAW     Sunday, August 16, 2009

US Sen Jim Webb’s timely visit to Burma has secured the release of the American intruder John William Yettaw, but the overall mission has received mixed reactions from observers and campaign groups.

The visit must not lend any legitimacy to the repressive dictatorship and even more pressure must be applied on the generals, say opposition groups.

Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of the Southeast Asia-based Altsean Burma, said the junta’s leaders granted Webb face-to-face meetings with Snr-Gen Than Shwe and Aung San Suu Kyi only because of unprecedented international and regional pressure.

US Senator Jim Webb meets with Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on August 15, 2009. (Photo: Reuters)
“It is ironic that Sen Jim Webb is allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi and [Snr Gen] Than Shwe because of pressure and sanctions,” Stothard said, while Webb himself opposes the US sanction policy. He is chairman of the East Asia and Pacific Affairs subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Well-informed sources told The Irrawaddy that before Webb’s non-official visit, Snr-Gen Than Shwe authorized secret discussions between Burmese and US representatives in a calculated diplomatic maneuver to deflect international pressure stemming from the sentencing of Suu Kyi.

The Burmese side gave the green light to the senator’s visit shortly after her bizarre trial ended last week. Webb arrived days after the conviction, and Yettaw’s release came a few days later.

In the past, the regime has played similar tactical maneuvers to dilute international pressure. Burma watchers recall that in February 1994, US Rep Bill Richardson was allowed to meet Suu Kyi for more than five hours at her house.

This newest gesture comes at a moment when the Obama administration is set to release its new Burma policy, following rising signals that US officials are open to new approaches on Burma, including, perhaps as a first step, the lifting of visa bans on Burmese officials and restoring the post of ambassador in Burma. Yettaw’s release sends a conciliatory signal to the US and European Union and carries the potential to deflect stronger sanctions. The US expanded its sanctions only last month.

Than Shwe, who granted Webb a personal audience in the fortress capital of Naypyidaw, also allowed him to meet Suu Kyi, the detained Nobel Peace Prize winner who last week received an additional 18-month suspended sentence and is now under house arrest in her lakeside home.

Burma watchers warn that Yettaw’s release is purely superficial because Suu Kyi and 2,100 other political prisoners remain in prison. Real substance is needed to justify US, or international, policy changes, and yet there’s a danger that the regime could manipulated the event to its advantage.

The Democratic senator, who noted that he asked for the release of Suu Kyi, said in a press statement: “It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future.”

A senior US security official said last week that Webb did not carry a message from the US administration, but the White House followed the visit closely and welcomed it.

“It is important for the Burmese leadership to hear the strong views of American political leaders about the path it should take toward democracy, good governance and genuine national reconciliation,” said Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

On Saturday, Fred C. Lash, a state department spokesman, reiterated that Yettaw’s release was a welcome step but more is needed.

“We also call on Burmese authorities to release unconditionally Aung San Suu Kyi and all of Burma’s more than 2,100 political prisoners in order to begin a process of national reconciliation and inclusive political dialogue,” he said.

Chiang Mai-based Burma analyst, Bertil Lintner, a Swedish journalist and author of several books on Burma, said, “It is naïve to expect these generals to listen to America and change their course.”

Regime watchers noted that a background drama involving Burma and China was also unfolding during Webb’s visit.
China’s unchallenged economic influence in Burma is growing, and Asia’s largest power clearly enjoys a regional strategic advantage in its unchallenged relationship.

Webb noted in an earlier statement: “As the United States continues its attempt to isolate Burma due to the human rights policies of its military regime, China’s influence has grown exponentially.”

However, Lintner said, “There’s no way that Burma will give up China because of America.”

Burma’s main concern, he said, is to maintain its good relationship with China and India, its two powerful neighbors, followed by Asean and a good relationship with the rest of the world including the U.S and EU.

A veteran Burmese journalist told The Irrawaddy that the regime’s relationship with China is deeply rooted, but even so Than Shwe and other top leaders are unhappy that China lends its political support to ethnic armed groups along the Sino-Burma border, in fear that clashes between the junta’s troops and ethnic armies could unleash a wave of refugees seeking safety in China, much like what has happened on the Thai-Burmese border.

Only this month, about 10,000 people, including Kokang and Chinese migrants, sought shelter in China after tensions increased between government troops and the Myanmar [Burma] National Democratic Alliance Army, a Kokang ceasefire group.

“Than Shwe is a clever chess player, and he may want to send a signal to China that he could have better relations with America,” said the Rangoon-based journalist.

However, considering the regime’s heavy reliance on China in terms of military hardware, trade and investment, plus a planned gas pipeline into Yunnan Province, he said, “The 20-year-old girl [Burma] is now pregnant, and she is not going to leave her husband [China] anytime soon.”
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16572
===ncgub=info=unit================
Thai call for ASEAN appeal to Myanmar to pardon Suu Kyi gets backing
SINGAPORE, Aug. 16 KYODO

A Thai government proposal for ASEAN to write to Myanmar’s junta to seek a pardon for democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has gained support from Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, Singaporean Foreign Minister George Yeo said late Saturday.

Yeo made the comments after meeting Thai counterpart Kasit Pirompya who was on a two-day visit to Singapore after calling on his counterparts in Malaysia and Indonesia to consult other Association of Southeast Asian Nations members about the situation in Myanmar.
Singapore’s Foreign Ministry has made the transcript of the comments available to the media Sunday.
Myanmar is one of ASEAN’s 10 members, but its lack of democracy and poor human rights record has been of concern to other members of the group.

Yeo said, ”We felt very disappointed by the recent verdict. Even though we appreciated the fact that part of Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence was reduced, the fact remains that she will still be incarcerated for another year and a half, which means that for the coming elections in Myanmar she would not be able to participate in any way.”

”This is not only unfair — we felt that it would go against the spirit of free and fair elections and national reconciliation,” Yeo said.

Kasit has proposed ASEAN foreign ministers write a joint letter to Myanmar’s ruling generals expressing disappointment with the junta’s renewed house detention of Suu Kyi who has spent most of the last 14 years under house arrest, and urging the junta to grant her full amnesty.

”I told Khun Kasit that Singapore will, for sure, be happy to sign such a letter. He told me that both Malaysia and Indonesia are also prepared to. He is now contacting the other foreign ministers and getting as many as possible to sign this letter, which we hope will help soften the hearts of the government in Myanmar in reviewing its decision,” Yeo said.

Kasit added, ”We would like to see national reconciliation and elections that would be inclusive. We do not want any personality or any political groups and so on to be excluded.”

”I hope that our Myanmar friends would listen that we are not interfering in their internal affairs. I think that the judicial process has been completed, which we respect, but I think the commuting of the sentence and the provision of amnesty is more of a political decision,” he said.
Thailand, which is drafting the letter as ASEAN’s chair, hopes to send it ”within this week,” Kasit said.
Asked if ASEAN will be prepared to take a stronger position on Myanmar, Yeo said ASEAN should never ostracize it. ”Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN family and will always be a member of the ASEAN family. For this reason, we should never cut off Myanmar.”
Last week, the Singapore government expressed disappointment with the guilty verdict by the Myanmar court, but it commended Myanmar’s generals for reducing her sentence and keeping her out of jail.
==Kyodo  http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=454927
===ncgub=info=unit================
Yangon, Myanmar: Senator meets Suu Kyi, wins U.S. man’s release
By Associated Press
Published: 8/16/2009  2:38 AM
Last Modified: 8/16/2009  4:57 AM

Stung by international outrage over the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s ruling generals agreed Saturday to hand a U.S. prisoner involved in her case to a visiting U.S. senator.

Sen. Jim Webb was also granted an unprecedented meeting with the junta chief and was allowed to talk with Suu Kyi, making him the first foreign official permitted to see the Nobel laureate since she was sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest Tuesday.

John Yettaw of Falcon, Mo., who was sentenced to seven years of hard labor for swimming uninvited to Suu Kyi’s lakeside house in Yangon, will be deported on Sunday, Webb’s Washington office reported.

Yettaw testified at Suu Kyi’s trial that he swam to her home to warn her after he had a vision that she would be assassinated. He was convicted of helping the opposition leader to violate the terms of her house arrest.

Suu Kyi, 64, has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, and a groundswell of international pressure for her release has kept the impoverished military-ruled country under sanctions.

Although Washington has traditionally been Myanmar’s strongest critic, applying political and economic sanctions, President Barack Obama’s new ambassador for eastern Asia, Kurt Campbell, has said the administration is interested in easing its policy of isolation.

The regime has shown no sign that it will release Suu Kyi before next year’s elections, which critics say will perpetuate the military’s decades-old rule, but Webb’s visit appeared to show
that the junta is sensitive to international censure.

“If the Americans can get the generals to see that their country’s interest is reflected in taking interest in reconciliation, releasing Aung Suu Kyi and holding free and fair elections, that would be very helpful,” said John Sawyers, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Suu Kyi was driven to a government guest house in Yangon for her 40-minute meeting with Webb. She was later returned to her home.

Webb described his talk as “an opportunity to convey my deep respect to Aung San Suu Kyi for the sacrifices she has made on behalf of democracy around the world.”

The Virginia Democrat had talks earlier Saturday with Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the reclusive chief of the military council who had never met a senior U.S. official.

Webb arrived in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw, on Friday, just days after the world condemned the ruling generals for convicting Suu Kyi of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing Yettaw to stay at her rundown home for two days.

Activists have complained that Webb’s visit conferred legitimacy on a brutal regime, but the Obama administration gave its blessing.

Webb, a highly decorated Vietnam War veteran, is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee.
By Associated Press  http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=13&articleid=20090816_13_A6_USSenJ813401
===ncgub=info=unit================
Suu Kyi still detained but American freed
Published: 10:17PM Sunday August 16, 2009
Source: Reuters

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest on Sunday but American John Yettaw, whose swim to her home in May led to her detention, was due to head home after a US senator secured his freedom.

Senator Jim Webb met Myanmar’s junta leader, Than Shwe, at the country’s remote new capital of Naypyidaw on Saturday and his office in Washington later said Yettaw would be released.

“Yettaw will be officially deported from Myanmar on Sunday morning. Senator Webb will bring him out of the country on a military aircraft that is returning to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon,” the statement said.

He also talked with Suu Kyi for about 45 minutes at a guest house in Yangon, after earlier meeting members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) and other political parties who had been invited to Naypyidaw by the government.

“He wanted to know the opinions of political parties about the present situation,” 88-year-old NLD senior leader Than Tun, who was present at the meeting, told said.

“We think his visit will be somewhat conducive to working for national reconciliation in our country.”

Other observers remained bitter at the treatment of Suu Kyi.
Advertisement
Click here to find out more!

“The most tangible outcome of his visit is the release of John Yettaw, who caused the mess. However, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is completely innocent in this incident, is still under house arrest,” said Thakhin Chan Tun, a former ambassador to North Korea.

Mymanmar’s military authorities said Yettaw’s two-day stay in Suu Kyi’s home breached the terms of her house arrest, which led to her trial.

She was sentenced last week to another 18 months under house arrest, enough to keep her out of campaigning for elections due next year. Some critics say this was the junta’s intention, and that Yettaw’s escapade provided the excuse for the new trial.

Yettaw himself was sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in a parallel trial on three charges, including immigration offences and “swimming in a non-swimming area”. His health is fragile and he spent several days in hospital this month.

Us investment ban

Suu Kyi has championed the fight for democracy in the former Burma and has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention of one form or another.

US President Barack Obama said her conviction violated universal principles of human rights and called for her release.

In May, Obama extended a ban on US investment in Myanmar imposed in 1997 because of the authorities’ political repression. He has also renewed sanctions on imports from Myanmar.

Before Suu Kyi’s trial ended, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held out the prospect of better relations with Myanmar but made that conditional, among other things, on the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Webb, a Democrat who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific, is the first member of Congress to travel in an official capacity to Myanmar in more than a decade.

The statement from his office said he was “the first American leader ever to meet with Myanmar President Than Shwe”.

A former Navy Secretary and a Vietnam War veteran who speaks Vietnamese, Webb favours a policy of engagement with the junta.

The United States has for years backed sanctions to persuade the generals to release political prisoners, but with little effect.

Many Asian nations, including the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which Myanmar is a member, have argued it was better to talk and trade with the resource-rich country that occupies a geostrategic position between China and India .

Thailand is asking its fellow ASEAN members to back a request to Myanmar to pardon Suu Kyi.
http://tvnz.co.nz/world-news/suu-kyi-still-detained-but-american-freed-2919865
===ncgub=info=unit================
washingtonpost.com
Senator Webb leaves Myanmar with American, offering an opening
By Aung Hla Tun
Reuters
Sunday, August 16, 2009 4:37 AM

YANGON (Reuters) – A U.S. senator met Myanmar’s top general and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, while arranging the release of an American prisoner on a weekend mission that offered a rare opening for better ties with the isolated nation.

Democratic Senator Jim Webb told reporters at the airport in Yangon on Sunday he was leaving Myanmar with John Yettaw, whose swim to Suu Kyi’s home in May led to her renewed detention.

He met Myanmar’s junta leader, Than Shwe, at the remote new capital of Naypyidaw on Saturday and then flew to Yangon to meet with Suu Kyi at a guesthouse immediately afterward.

Webb said he also asked for Suu Kyi to be released. Asked about the junta’s response, he replied: “I’m hopeful about this.”

Yettaw did not attend the news conference. A police officer told Reuters he had been taken from prison to the airport, where he joined the senator’s party. Their plane left Yangon for Bangkok at around 1:30 p.m. (3 a.m. EDT).

Webb was allowed by the military authorities to speak with Suu Kyi for about 45 minutes at a guesthouse in Yangon, after earlier meeting members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) and other political parties who had been invited to Naypyidaw by the government.

“He wanted to know the opinions of political parties about the present situation,” 88-year-old NLD senior leader Than Tun, who was present at the meeting, told Reuters on Sunday.

“We think his visit will be somewhat conducive to working for national reconciliation in our country.”

Other observers remained bitter at the treatment of Suu Kyi.

“The most tangible outcome of his visit is the release of John Yettaw, who caused the mess,” said Thakhin Chan Tun, a former ambassador to North Korea. “However, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who is completely innocent in this incident, is still under house arrest.”

Myanmar’s military authorities said Yettaw’s two-day stay in Suu Kyi’s home breached the terms of her house arrest, which led to her trial.

She was sentenced last week to another 18 months under house arrest, enough to keep her out of campaigning for elections due next year. Some critics say this was the junta’s intention, and that Yettaw’s escapade provided the excuse for the new trial.

Yettaw himself was sentenced to seven years’ hard labor in a parallel trial on three charges, including immigration offences and “swimming in a non-swimming area.” His health is fragile and he spent several days in hospital this month.

U.S. INVESTMENT BAN

Suu Kyi has championed the fight for democracy in the former Burma and has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention of one form or another.

U.S. President Barack Obama said her conviction violated universal principles of human rights and called for her release.

In May, Obama extended a ban on U.S. investment in Myanmar imposed in 1997 because of the authorities’ political repression. He has also renewed sanctions on imports from Myanmar.

Before Suu Kyi’s trial ended, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton held out the prospect of better relations with Myanmar but made that conditional, among other things, on the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Webb, a Democrat who is chairman of a Senate subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific, is the first member of Congress to travel in an official capacity to Myanmar in more than a decade.

His office said on Saturday he was “the first American leader ever to meet with Myanmar President Than Shwe.”

A former Navy Secretary and a Vietnam War veteran who speaks Vietnamese, Webb favors a policy of engagement with the junta.

The United States has for years backed sanctions to persuade the generals to release political prisoners, to little effect.

Many Asian nations, including the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which Myanmar is a member, have argued it is better to talk and trade with the resource-rich country that occupies a geostrategic position between China and India.

Thailand is asking its fellow ASEAN members to back a request to Myanmar to pardon Suu Kyi.

(Writing by Alan Raybould; Editing by Bill Tarrant)
© 2009 Reuters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/16/AR2009081600299.html
===ncgub=info=unit================
Troubled American leaves, with Suu Kyi still detained
By Danny Kemp, Agence France-PresseAugust 16, 2009 1:01 AM

BANGKOK – John Yettaw’s bizarre adventures in Myanmar ended on Sunday thanks to a U.S. senator — but the woman he was on a “mission from God” to save remains locked up because of his actions.

The diabetic, epileptic father-of-seven found himself at the centre of both Aung San Suu Kyi’s two-decade long struggle with Myanmar’s military junta and also of a possible shift in Washington’s policy towards the regime.

Sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and hard labour on Tuesday for swimming to her home, the 54-year-old flew out five days later after U.S. Senator Jim Webb unexpectedly persuaded military chief Than Shwe to deport him.

Police arrested Yettaw climbing out of Yangon’s Inye Lake on May 6, sporting a pair of homemade flippers and carrying an amateur “spy kit” that included a flashlight, pliers, a camera and two 100-dollar bills.

Photographs the heavy-set Yettaw had taken of himself before his ill-fated adventure showed him wearing his flippers and a short-sleeved shirt while staring intensely into the lens.

It later emerged that he had been to Suu Kyi’s crumbling villa once before, in November 2008, when he walked along a lakeside drain and left a copy of the Book of Mormon at her house before escaping.

Lawyers for Suu Kyi initially branded Yettaw a “fool” because his actions gave the military regime an excuse to keep the Nobel Peace Prize winner locked up during elections due next year.

Conspiracy theories sprang up — both from activists and the junta — about who, if anybody, was backing him, particularly as he was caught just days before the latest period of Suu Kyi’s house was due to expire.

Yettaw went on hunger strike after his arrest, which resulted in a series of epileptic fits that saw him hospitalized in early August, delaying the verdict in his and Suu Kyi’s trial.

They were finally convicted on August 12, with Yettaw sentenced to three years for breaching security laws, three years for immigration violations and one year for a municipal charge of illegal swimming.

Suu Kyi in turn was sentenced to three years for violating the terms of her house arrest, though Than Shwe signed an order allowing her to serve just half that time, under house arrest.

But a picture eventually emerged of Yettaw as a tragic figure on a spiritual quest, a devout Mormon who sought redemption after his teenage son was killed riding a motorcycle that Yettaw bought as a present.

“He’s a very sincere and pious person,” Yettaw’s lawyer Khin Maung Oo told AFP.

Yettaw said he had experienced a divine vision that “terrorists” would assassinate the democracy icon and wanted to warn her.

“Yettaw said he came here because God asked him to,” Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers, quoted him as telling the trial in May.

“In his vision, the terrorists assassinated Aung San Suu Kyi and then they put the blame for the assassination on the government, so that’s why he came here, to warn both of them,” he said.

The story behind this vision revealed a lost soul with a difficult past.

Military records showed that Yettaw spent a short time in the U.S. military in the 1970s, though Yettaw told Myanmar authorities that he was a Vietnam veteran with a history of post-traumatic stress disorder.

His U.S. neighbours described Yettaw — who lived in a trailer home, was married four times and had a history of drinking problems — as something of a misfit who briefly studied psychology.

Yettaw changed dramatically when his son Clint died two years ago in a motorcycling accident at the age of 17. The teen was buried on the family farm in the hamlet of Falcon.

Yettaw took a backpack tour through Asia with another son, during which he made his first swim to Suu Kyi’s house. He then began to experience the latest of the visions, according to Newsweek magazine.

In April Yettaw left his children with friends and set off for Thailand, and then Myanmar.

“I don’t think he’s well,” Yettaw’s third wife Yvonne told Newsweek.

Activists were angered that Yettaw would now go back home while Suu Kyi and her two female aides remained in detention, describing the episode as a propaganda coup for the junta.
© Copyright (c) AFP  http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Troubled+American+leaves+with+still+detained/1898216/story.html
===ncgub=info=unit================
Sunday, 16th August 2009
A woman of gentle steel

Lino Spiteri

In our age of freedom there are still too many regions where tyranny prevails. Myanmar – still more familiar as Burma – is one of them. It achieved independence from Britain on January 4, 1948. At the time this southeast Asian country was one of the richest and most educated in the world. Today it is one of the poorest.

The struggle for freedom was led by acknowledged hero General Aung San. He did not see his objective reached – he was assassinated a few months before that happened. Nor did he ever, could he ever imagine what would become of his country, much less of his then two-year old daughter.

Aung San Suu Kyi is now 65. For a long time she lived abroad, among other things reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics, at Oxford. She married Oxford academic Michael Aris and had two children by him.

Meanwhile, her country had fallen under the curse of military oppression, which has savaged Burma for years. The regime holds mock elections and has over 2,000 political prisoners. Suu Kyi is the most well-known of them.

In 1988 she went back to her country and became involved in a pro-democracy movement.

She is the acknowledged leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD).

She is also the military regime’s blackest sheep and its biggest mistake. Soon after her return home, General Aung San’s daughter was arrested. Her first of many periods of detention and loss of personal freedom commenced. She has spent around half of her post-1988 time in Burma under some form of detention.

The oppressive military regime’s mistake was that it could not have chosen a more determined woman to try to suppress. She is made of intellectual and emotional steel, even if physically she is now ailing, suffering from low blood pressure and dehydration.

How strong she is was shown early on when the regime would not allow her to see her two sons and her husband. Aris had cancer.

As he lay on his deathbed in March 1999 the military authorities “offered” to allow Suu Kyi to go to the UK to see him. History records that she felt compelled to refuse for fear that the military oppressors would not allow her back in Burma. I remember the Oxford Society mobilising Oxonians to support her.

Her anguish could not have been greater. Yet, she persevered, as Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela had done before her. The more the obnoxious military regime ill-treated her, the more she became a national and international symbol of peaceful resistance, of hope, of something wonderful beyond belief.

Recently the regime found another excuse to put her on trial again. An American swam across a lake to her compound to speak to her. He was arrested. Later, so was she. She was tried and, surprise surprise, found guilty. She was sentenced to another 18 months of house arrest.

Disgusting, yes, but also suggestive of hope. At long last Suu Kyi, awarded a Nobel Prize in 1991 for her efforts to bring democracy to Burma, may have brought about a glimmer of light in the ugly darkness. Her sentence was, by comparison to past experience, mild.

It will keep her out of the public eye before the elections due next year. Yet it will be a softer period than in past years, which included solitary confinements during her first six years under house arrest.

Perhaps the regime is at long last feeling the pressure of world opinion even if, for economic reasons related to Burma’s exports, that is not as united as it should be. Perhaps Suu Kyi, the woman of gentle steel, has become too big a symbol to handle with unlimited disdain and roughness.

Each time the military regime has been brutal, albeit in a non physical sense, towards Suu Kyi, her popularity and meaning have grown.

That was again demonstrated in 2007. A battered people protested against fuel prices. Traditionally peaceful Buddhist monks joined in. Suu Kyi appeared outside her home to meet some of them, her first public appearance since 2003.

The regime stamped out the protests, finding time to punish the hero’s heroine daughter once again. World attention focused more closely on Burma.

For all that, there will be no invasion to bring about regime change. The Burmese people will have to do that themselves, someday. They will need other heroes, cast in the mould of General Aung San, whom the regime do not even acknowledge on Independence Day. It will happen eventually.

The lasting strength of Suu Kyi will lead to that. Global public support for her and what she stands for will help, even from tiny Malta.

Gandhi changed India. Mandela changed South Africa. External support helped them. So will it benefit Suu Kyi and her noble mission.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20090816/opinion/a-woman-of-gentle-steel
=======================
First int’l level shopping center opens in Myanmar new capital
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-16 19:58:19

NAY PYI TAW, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) — The first private-run international-level shopping center, “Junction Center Nay Pyi Taw” opened in Myanmar’s new capital Nay Pyi Taw Sunday.

Jointly inaugurated by First Secretary of the State Peace and Development Council General Thiha Thura Tin Aung Myint Oo, Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan, Nay Pyi Taw Mayor Colonel Thein Nyunt and Nay Pyi Taw Commander Major-GenerealWai Lwin, the biggest shopping center in the city was built by the Shwe Taung Development company.

The two-story shopping center, comprising Ocean super-center, Game City amusement center, Fashion shops, electronic and computer related accessories, Sports accessories Coffee and bakery shops, is also attached with a mini theater which can accommodate 200 audiences.

The attachment of the mini theater to the shopping center is the first of its kind, aimed at raising the standard of Myanmar motion pictures as well as upgrading levels of cinemas in Myanmar in providing local people with higher entertainment facility, according to the Shwe Taung company.

The Junction Center was built on a land area of over 5,500 square meters and the first two similar centers — Junction 8 and Junction Zawana are located in the former capital of Yangon.

Myanmar moved its administrative capital from Yangon to Nay PyiTaw in November 2005 which is located between middle mountain range of Bago Yoma and eastern mountain range of Shan Yoma.

It covers an area of 7,054.37 square-kilometers and has a population of 924,608.
Editor: Lin Liyu http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-08/16/content_11892281.htm