Not So Great Expectations for U.S. Diplomats in Burma
US envoy in landmark talks with Suu Kyi
Suu Kyi, Campbell Hold Two-hour Meeting
Burmese-US Relations: ‘Mind the Gap!’
US Envoys Meet Burma’s PM, Aung San Suu Kyi
US officials meet with Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi
US envoy meets Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi
U.S. delegation holds talks with Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi meets senior US diplomat in Burma
US envoy, Suu Kyi in talks
US diplomats meet Burmese leaders
US envoys meet Myanmar PM
US envoy in rare talks with Suu Kyi, Burma PM
US envoys hold rare meeting with Burma PM: official
US envoys to visit Suu Kyi at her home
Myanmar traders sign million dollars export MoU in China-ASEAN expo
China oil company starts work on Myanmar pipeline
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Not So Great Expectations for U.S. Diplomats in Burma
By Robert Horn / Bangkok Wednesday, Nov. 04, 2009

The first high-level team of U.S. diplomats to visit Burma in 14 years met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Wednesday in what some hope may signal the first steps towards breaking the political deadlock that has gripped Burma for more than 20 years. But Burma analysts said any positive developments from the mission would depend upon the man the Americans did not meet — Burma’s reclusive military leader Gen. Than Shwe.

Instead, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy Scot Marciel met with Prime Minister Thein Sein, who wields little actual political power, in the inland capital of Nyapyidaw on the second day of their two day visit. They later flew to Rangoon to confer with 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who was allowed to travel from the home where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years under arrest, to a downtown hotel where the diplomats were staying. (See pictures of Burma’s slowly shifting landscape.)

“Our expectations are modest,” says Aung Zaw, editor of The Irrawaddy, an influential Thailand-based magazine on Burma affairs. “We’ve seen these on-again, off-again discussions many times before with the United Nations and the European Union, among others.” Real change, he said, could only come from Than Shwe, the supreme leader since 1992 of the military committee that rules the country and calls itself the State Peace and Development Council. Describing Burma as an oligarchy, he says that if Than Shwe had the political will, “He could solve 40 years of Burma’s problems in four hours.”

The visit is the second meeting between the nations’ diplomats since President Barack Obama announced in September that his administration would pursue a policy of engaging the generals who rule the country, rather than rebuffing them. The first meeting took place several weeks ago in New York City. Burma has been under military rule since 1962, and since the bloody suppression of a democracy uprising in 1988, the U.S. has incrementally reduced contacts with the regime and increased sanctions against it for its record of human rights violations and quashing democracy. Larry Dinger, thecharge d’affairs at the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, was quoted in the state-run Myanmar Times this week as saying that Washington wanted to make progress on “important issues” but would maintain sanctions “until concrete progress is made.” The State Department has referred to the trip as a “fact-finding mission.”

The regime blames Suu Kyi for having called for sanctions in the past. She has said she is open to rescinding the call if the regime agrees to engage in a genuine dialogue with her, her party and ethnic minorities. The junta is planning on holding elections next year for the first time since 1990, when they lost to Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, by a landslide, and then ignored the results. Suu Kyi has been barred from participating in the upcoming poll, and unless she is pardoned, will still be under house arrest when it takes place. Thein Sein recently told Southeast Asian diplomats that the terms of her could be eased if she “behaved.” (See the world’s top 10 contested elections.)

The Obama Administration has said it has changed its approach because sanctions alone have not worked in bringing about change in the isolated and impoverished nation. For their part, the generals are interested in improving relations because they are overly reliant on China, which has major investments in Burma, as an ally. The junta wants sanctions removed and their upcoming elections to be regarded as legitimate.

Debbie Stothard, executive director of ALTSEAN, an activist network involved in Burma issues, urged the two American diplomats to stand firm on democracy and human rights during their visit this week. “The regime won’t like it, but they will respect the U.S. more for it. They will know that the U.S. can’t be pushed around or fooled like the Association of Southeast Asian nations,” she says. ASEAN, which admitted Burma as a member in 1997, has advocated a course of “constructive engagement” as a way of moderating the regime’s behavior, including expanding economic and business ties. Stothard says that policy has failed, as evidenced by what she calls “an all-time high in the number of political prisoners and a spike in military aggression against the country’s ethnic minorities.”

Aung Zaw credits Campbell, who specializes in East Asian and Pacific affairs for the White House, with being well-informed on Burma issues. It was unlikely the regime could pull the wool over his eyes, as it has done with other prominent visitors, he says. “Campbell met and listened to everyone, whether they were Burman, ethnic minorities, pro-regime or anti-regime. Everyone was pleased with that.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1934441,00.html?xid=rss-world#ixzz0VtVfn6Et

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US envoy in landmark talks with Suu Kyi

Agence France-Presse | 11/04/2009 8:16 PM

YANGON – A top US official held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday after Myanmar’s ruling junta gave the democracy icon a rare break from house arrest during Washington’s highest-level visit here for 14 years.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell also met Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein as part of efforts by the Obama administration to re-engage with the hardline military regime.

Nobel Laureate Suu Kyi met Campbell for two hours at a luxury hotel in Yangon — the first time she had appeared in front of the media other than at her home or in prison since her current period of detention began in 2003.

Dressed in a pink and maroon traditional outfit, the 64-year-old smiled but did not answer questions as she headed into the talks with the US diplomat and his deputy, Scot Marciel.

“Am I beautiful when I smile?” Suu Kyi joked with the media after the talks, adding: “Hello to all of you.”

Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades in detention and the junta gave her an extra 18 months of house arrest in August, effectively ruling her out of elections due in 2010 that critics say are a sham.

The opposition leader was sentenced after being found guilty of harbouring an American man who swam to her lakeside house earlier in the year. Journalists saw her in prison at the trial but were not allowed to take pictures.

Campbell and Marciel held talks earlier on Wednesday with Premier Thein Sein in the remote administrative capital Naypyidaw, Myanmar officials said on condition of anonymity, without giving details.

Myanmar officials said the US delegation was not expected to meet reclusive junta leader Than Shwe. State media said that when the US envoys arrived he was in southern Myanmar inspecting aid efforts after last year’s Cyclone Nargis.

The US duo also met with senior members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), which won Myanmar’s last elections in 1990 but was prevented from taking power by the army. They were due to leave Wednesday night.

“The meeting was positive,” NLD spokesman Khin Maung Swe, who attended the talks at party headquarters in Yangon, told AFP.

“We discussed the transition to democracy and focused on the dialogue between Aung San Suu Kyi and Senior General Than Shwe. From their side they didn’t say much, they just listened,” he said.

Campbell is the highest ranking US official to travel to Myanmar — formerly known as Burma — since Madeleine Albright went as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The two-day trip is a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between US and Myanmar officials, the highest-level US contact with the regime in nearly a decade.

President Barack Obama’s administration in September announced a dramatic change in US policy because isolating Myanmar had failed, but said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly overnight described the visit as a “fact-finding mission” and said it was the “the second step in the beginning of a dialogue with Burma.”

Asked what Campbell discussed on Tuesday in talks with the information minister and local organisations, Kelly said: “They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue, but they were mainly in a listening mode.”

September’s talks had called for free and fair elections and the release of Suu Kyi, but also dealt with US concerns about Myanmar’s possible military links with nuclear-armed North Korea.

The first major sign of a thaw came in August when Than Shwe held an unprecedented meeting with visiting US senator Jim Webb, which yielded the release of John Yettaw, the American detained for swimming to Suu Kyi’s house.

Suu Kyi then said that she would be ready to help the junta get sanctions lifted and she was allowed to meet foreign diplomats in October.
as of 11/04/2009 8:16 PM  http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/world/11/04/09/us-envoy-landmark-talks-suu-kyi
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Suu Kyi, Campbell Hold Two-hour Meeting
By WAI MOE      Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met with a delegation led by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell at Inya Lake Hotel in Rangoon for two hours today, according to US officials.

US Embassy officials in Rangoon said the meeting started 11:40 am local time at the hotel and ended at 1:40 pm.

Aung San Suu Kyi arrives for a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell at the Inya Lake Hotel in Rangoon, on November 4. (Photo: Reuters)

Earlier today, the visiting US delegation met with Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein before flying to Rangoon for talks with Suu Kyi.

An official with the US Embassy in Rangoon, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Irrawaddy that the meeting between Thein Sein and Campbell proceeded as scheduled. Campbell will hold a press conference at Rangoon International Airport at 6:30 pm local time.

Campbell’s meeting with Thein Sein was the first between a senior US official and a Burmese prime minister in more than a decade.

At last month’s summit meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), Thein Sein told his Asean counterparts that Suu Kyi has a role to play in the national reconciliation process.

Responding to Thein Sein’s statement, Win Tin, a prominent leader of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), said that if Suu Kyi has a role to play in the national conciliation process, the junta has to prove it practically.

Shortly after his arrival in Rangoon on Wednesday morning, Campbell was scheduled to meet Suu Kyi at the city’s Inya Lake Hotel. Following the meeting with Suu Kyi, the US delegation will meet with ethnic and opposition leaders on Wednesday afternoon.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win said six of the nine members of the party’s central executive committee, including Win Tin and Khin Maung Swe, would meet with the US delegation at the party’s headquarter.

Nyan Win said the three other executive members, including party chairman Aung Shwe and secretary U Lwin, would not be able to attend the meeting because of ill health.
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=17133
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Burmese-US Relations: ‘Mind the Gap!’
By DAVID I. STEINBERG   Wednesday, November 4, 2009

As a Burmese colleague reminded an unofficial Washington conference on Burma/Myanmar a few days ago, departing passengers on the London tube (subway) were warned to “mind the gap” between the train and platform, otherwise there might be an accident.

That advice, he noted, also has merit in thinking about Burmese relations with the US.

That dangerous gap in relations has widened over the decade and a half since the last senior US officials traveled to Burma/Myanmar. The isolation in direct dialogue with that country has also been reflected in US-imposed economic isolation through the imposition of various degrees of sanctions since the failed peoples’ revolution of 1988.

In the past few months, we have witnessed a remarkable shift, not so much in policy but in the efforts to see whether that gap in relations might be narrowed and perhaps bridged.

The present visit of Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell follows the articulation of a new policy toward Burma by the United States, which in turn followed the August visit by Sen. Jim Webb, the chair of the US House of Representatives Asian subcommittee on foreign affairs.  These efforts are part of a process, which as Secretary Campbell has noted, is likely to be long and arduous.

The new policy of the Obama administration, released in September by Secretary Campbell, calls for a continuation of the set of sanctions already set in place, and that began over two decades ago when the US cancelled its economic and military aid program in 1988. At the same time, it advocated enhanced and direct dialogue with the Burmese leadership.

Both sanctions and dialogue are obviously not ends in themselves—they are tactical means by which to try to achieve goals.  Those goals, according to the administration, are to see a more democratic Burmese administration concerned with improving the economic and political plight of its diverse peoples.

The efforts by the Obama administration to improve relations with Burma/Myanmar through the visits of Sen. Webb and Secretary Campbell, and the new policy are welcome changes. There have been indications from the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) that they too are also interested in exploring better relations.

Both governments are, however, in effect restricted by internal administrative considerations. The SPDC is wedded to its new Constitution that will continue taut military control over the critical affairs of state through an elective process that, as Snr-Gen Than Shwe has noted, will bring “discipline-flourishing democracy,” a version of the democratic process unlikely to satisfy the unmodified meaning of the term “democracy” to the Western world.

He indicated in his March 27, 2009, speech that as a new well does not quickly yield clear water, so the administration under the new Constitution and legislature will require what is, in effect, a military filter of that muddied democratic water.

The Obama administration is also restrained by a strong anti-military sentiment in both parties in the Congress. As a Washington observer noted, Burma is a “boutique issue,” important but not top tier.

And, as another writer indicated, the executive branch, concerned with other more urgent priorities, leased out policy toward Burma to the Congress, from which it is now trying to retrieve it.

The attitudes, or purported attitudes, of Aung San Suu Kyi have strongly influenced U.S. policy backed by an effective lobbying force of rights advocates and expatriate Burmese. Modifications in US policy will not easily be accomplished without significant positive changes within Burma itself.

Clearly, internal political considerations affect the possible narrowing of the gap in relations that presently exists.  But this is the best opportunity in about two decades to explore affecting change.  It is in the interests of the Burmese people, the United States, and indeed the Southeast Asia region and beyond, that this process proves fruitful.

David I. Steinberg is distinguished professor of Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.  His latest book is “Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know.” (Oxford University Press).
http://www.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=17132
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US Envoys Meet Burma’s PM, Aung San Suu Kyi
By VOA News
04 November 2009

Senior U.S. diplomats are meeting with detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday, as the Obama administration pursues a new diplomatic approach towards the military-ruled nation.

Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (file photo)
Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi (File)
The Nobel Peace laureate shook hands with Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell as she arrived at a luxury hotel in the main city of Rangoon.  The meeting is a rare break from the detention she has endured for 14 of the last 20 years.

The meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi came hours after Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, and his deputy, Scott Marceil, held talks with Prime Minister Thein Sein in Burma’s administrative capital, Naypyidaw.

Campbell is the highest ranking U.S. official to visit Burma since then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, visited in September of 1995.

He and Marceil arrived in Burma Tuesday on a visit the State Department says is aimed at promoting dialogue with Burma.  Campbell held talks with high-ranking Burmese diplomats in New York in September, the first such talks in nearly a decade.

Critics have said high-level U.S. visits give legitimacy to a military government that jails opponents.  Aung San Suu Kyi has recently backed direct dialogue with the military government.

The U.S. and European countries have long imposed sanctions against the military government because of its rights abuses.

Aung San Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for allowing an American to stay at her lakeside Rangoon home after he swam there uninvited in May.

Human rights groups say that in addition to the Nobel Peace laureate, the government is holding more than 2,000 people as political prisoners.

Washington and the United Nations are pressing Burma to release all political prisoners so they can participate in next year’s election.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.  http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-11-04-voa7.cfm
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US officials meet with Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi
November 4, 2009. [Reuters]

Karen Percy, South East Asia correspondent

Last Updated: 6 hours 15 minutes ago

A top US official has met Burma’s detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as part of Washington’s highest-level visit to the country in 14 years.

Ms Suu Kyi, 64 years old, was granted temporary release from house detention to attend talks with Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia.

In a rare gesture of openness by the regime, journalists were able to witness her arrival at a hotel in central Rangoon.

Mr Campbell and his team began their visit to Burma on Monday and met the Prime Minister, Thein Sein, in the administrative city of Naypidaw.

But they were not given a chance to meet the junta’s supreme leader, Than Shwe.

The new US administration is taking a different approach to Burma in the hopes that the prospect of investment might bring the generals around to allowing greater democratic freedoms.

A recent court ruling sentencing Suu Kyi to another year and a half of house detention means she cannot run in elections planned for next year.

Critics say the poll is expected to cement the junta’s six decades-long hold on power.

The US delegation is expected to hold talks with Burmese ethnic groups, some of which are still fighting against the military junta in remote parts of the country.
http://www.radioaustralianews.net.au/stories/200911/2733458.htm?desktop
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US envoy meets Myanmar pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi
Posted : Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:28:23 GMT
By : dpa
Category : Asia (World)
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Yangon – US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell – the highest ranking American official to visit military-ruled Myanmar in 14 years – met Wednesday with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Campbell, accompanied by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scot Marciel, met with Thein Sein in the capital, Naypyitaw, before flying to Yangon, where he was allowed a rare interview with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi, who has been under house detention for 14 of the past 20 years, met for almost two hours at a hotel with Campbell and Marciel, who are on a two-day visit to Myanmar as part of US President Barack Obama’s new policy of engagement with the pariah regime.

In an unusual display of openness in the military-run country, local journalists were allowed to take photos of Suu Kyi, 65, as she arrived and left the hotel.

“Smile for us, aunty Suu,” the cameramen called when she emerged from the meeting.

“Is this a beautiful smile?” Suu Kyi joked, beaming and seemingly in good health.

Questions on the outcome of her meeting were not permitted, but Campbell and Marciel were expected to have a press conference at Yangon Airport before their departure Wednesday evening.

The latest detention stint for Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar independence hero Aung San, has lasted six years, and she was recently sentenced to another 18 months of house detention, a sufficient sentence to keep her out of the picture when the junta stages a general election planned next year.

Campbell was expected to use his visit to press the junta to release Suu Kyi and about 2,100 other political prisoners before the 2010 polls.

The United States has indicated that it might consider lifting some of its economic sanctions on Myanmar if the regime frees Suu Kyi and takes other measures to assure next year’s election is “inclusive,” free and fair.

On Tuesday, Campbell and Marceil met with Information Minister Kyaw Hsan, Science and Technology Minister U Thaung and representatives of the Election Commission in Naypyitaw, 350 kilometres north of Myanmar’s old capital of Yangon.

They were not granted an audience with military supremo Senior General Than Shwe.

The US envoys also planned talks with leaders of Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party, the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament and the pro-junta National Unity Party before departing.

Marciel is to travel to Thailand to participate in a public forum at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University on US foreign policy toward Myanmar Thursday and also brief Thai officials.

Suu Kyi has welcomed Campbell’s visit, seen as part of Obama’s diplomatic initiative to engage with Myanmar to encourage democratic reforms.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Suu Kyi’s NLD won a 1990 general election by a landslide but has been denied power by the military.

The international community was not expected to accept the outcome of next year’s election unless Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are freed and the NLD is allowed to contest the polls.

Copyright DPA  http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/293166,1stlead-us-envoy-meets-myanmar-pro-democracy-icon-aung-san-suu-kyi.html
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U.S. delegation holds talks with Myanmar’s Suu Kyi
Wed Nov 4, 2009 4:18am EST

YANGON (Reuters) – A top U.S. official held rare talks with Myanmar’s detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Wednesday as part of Washington’s highest-level visit to the isolated army-ruled country in 14 years.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner met United States Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell for more than two hours at a hotel near Yangon’s Inya lake, close to her home where she has been detained for much of the past two decades.

Suu Kyi and Campbell posed for photographs but did not answer reporters’ questions.

Campbell, Washington’s top official for East and Southeast Asia, met earlier on Wednesday with Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein.

On Tuesday, Campbell held talks with top junta officials in the remote new capital Naypyidaw, but he did not meet junta supremo Than Shwe, the aging general who has tightly controlled the former Burma for the past 17 years.

Diplomats and analysts have described the visit as an exploratory dialogue and say it is unlikely anything substantive will come from the two-day trip, which comes after a recent softening of stances by both sides. The State Department said on Tuesday the visit was a “fact-finding mission.”

The regime is keen to see Western sanctions lifted and has allowed Suu Kyi to raise the issue with diplomats in meetings that the junta normally forbids.

The United States announced in September it would pursue deeper engagement to try to spur democratic reforms in Myanmar and is pressing for free, fair and inclusive elections next year.

However, it has refused to lift its trade embargo on the resource-rich country and says the dialogue would supplement sanctions rather than replace them.

Campbell was due to meet representatives of ethnic groups and Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which was the clear winner the last time polls were held in 1990.

The military, which has ruled since a 1962 coup, refused to recognize the NLD victory. The party has yet to say whether it will contest next year’s vote.

(Reporting by Aung Hla Tun; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould and Bill Tarrant)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved  http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSTRE5A25OM20091104?rpc=401 &
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Aung San Suu Kyi meets senior US diplomat in Burma

Meeting is first time opposition leader has been allowed to leave house arrest in years, in most significant trip by US in 14 years

Aung San Suu Kyi arrives for a meeting with US official Kurt Campbell (l)

Aung San Suu Kyi arrives for a meeting with US official Kurt Campbell (l) at the Inya Lake hotel in Rangoon. Photograph: Aung Hla Tun/Reuters

A US state department official met with Aung San Suu Kyi today, in a visit that marked the highest-level talks between an American diplomat and Burma’s detained opposition leader in 14 years.

Assistant secretary of state Kurt Campbell, the top US diplomat for east Asia, greeted Aung San Suu Kyi with a handshake after she was driven to his hotel in Rangoon, the US embassy spokesman Richard Mei said.

The topic of their discussion was not immediately known, but the meeting offered the opposition leader, who wore a pink traditional Burmese jacket, her first trip in years outside the confines of her dilapidated home and notorious Insein Prison. The 64-year-old Nobel peace prize laureate has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, mostly under house arrest.

Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, are the highest-level Americans to visit Burma since 1995. Their trip stems from a new US policy that reverses the Bush administration’s isolation of Burma in favour of direct, high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by a military junta since 1962.

Their two-day visit is the second step in “the beginning of a dialogue with Burma,” state department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters in Washington yesterday, after the officials had met with senior junta officials in Burma’s administrative capital of Naypyitaw.

“They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue,” Kelly said. “But they were mainly in a listening mode.”

Campbell is continuing talks he began in September in New York with senior Burmese officials, which at the time were the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade. Campbell today met the prime minister, General Thein Sein, before flying to Rangoon, the commercial capital, Mei said.

Aung San Suu Kyi was recently sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American, in a trial that drew global condemnation. The sentence means she will not be able to participate in next year’s elections, which will be the first in two decades.

Campbell is scheduled to meet later in the afternoon with leaders of the opposition National League for Democracy party at their headquarters followed by talks with other political parties.

For years, the US had isolated the junta with political and economic sanctions, which failed to force the generals to respect human rights, release jailed political activists and make democratic reforms. The Obama administration decided recently to step up engagement as a way of promoting reforms.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/nov/04/suu-kyi-american-official-talks
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STRAITS TIMES: Nov 4, 2009

US envoy, Suu Kyi in talks

Ms Suu Kyi (right) met Mr Campbell (left) at a luxury hotel in the former capital Yangon. — PHOTO: REUTERS

YANGON – THE most senior US official to visit Myanmar for a decade and a half held talks with Ms Aung San Suu Kyi on Wednesday after the ruling junta allowed the detained Nobel laureate to make a rare public appearance.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, accompanied by his deputy Scot Marciel, also met Myanmar’s prime minister as Washington seeks a new era of engagement with the military regime.

Ms Suu Kyi met Mr Campbell at a luxury hotel in the former capital Yangon, the first time she had appeared in front of the media other than at her house or in prison since the current period of her house arrest began in 2003.

Dressed in a pink and maroon traditional outfit, the 64-year-old opposition leader smiled but neither she nor the US diplomat spoke to waiting reporters as she headed into the meeting in a hotel room.

Earlier this year journalists saw her in prison at her trial for harbouring an American man who swam to her house, but they were not allowed to take pictures and the only images were released on state television.

The junta extended her house arrest by another 18 months in August after she was found guilty, effectively ruling her out of elections due in 2010 that critics already say are a sham. — AFP
http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/SE%2BAsia/Story/STIStory_450186.html
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Wednesday, 4 November 2009
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US diplomats meet Burmese leaders

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest in Rangoon

Two senior US envoys have held separate talks with Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein and detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The visit of US Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy is the highest level contact between the two governments for more than a decade.

Mr Campbell met the prime minister in the capital, Naypyitaw, before flying to Rangoon to meet Ms Suu Kyi.

No details of either set of talks have been released.

The visit comes weeks after the US announced it would engage with Burma’s military junta in an attempt to promote reform.

But the US envoys are not meeting Burma’s top leader, General Than Shwe.

New approach

Aung San Suu Kyi said nothing as she entered the lakeside hotel in Rangoon to meet the US officials.

But the fact that she was seen in public and was allowed to meet such a high-level US delegation is being seen as positive, reports BBC South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey.

After the talks, which lasted two hours, Mr Campbell was expected to meet with leaders of Ms Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), officials said.

The US diplomats earlier met Burmese Prime Minister Thein Sein in Naypyidaw. Details of those discussions have not been made public.

The visit is the latest evidence of Washington’s new approach towards Burma, our correspondent says, a policy described as engagement alongside sanctions.

There is a growing belief in diplomatic circles that isolating the military leadership has not had the desired effect. The question now is whether face-to-face dialogue is any more productive, our reporter adds.

Burma’s military junta says multi-party elections will take place in early 2010 – the first polls in almost two decades.

Ms Suu Kyi’s NLD won the last elections, in 1990, but was never allowed to take power.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8341568.stm
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US envoys meet Myanmar PM

The envoys are set to meet opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon on Wednesday [Reuters file]

The most senior US official to visit Myanmar in 14 years has met the military government’s prime minister for talks.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, along with his deputy Scot Marciel, met Thein Sein in the remote jungle capital of Naypyidaw on Wednesday.

The two are also set to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained opposition leader, later in the day in Yangon, the former capital.

But Myanmar officials said the two envoys will probably not get to meet Senior General Than Shwe, the head of the military government, on their two-day visit.

‘First step’

Ian Kelly, a spokesman for the US state department, said the visit was a “fact-finding” mission, adding that it was the “first step, or I guess I should say the second step in the beginning of a dialogue with Burma [Myanmar's earlier name]“.

Campbell, left, and Marciel are the most senior US officials to visit since 1995 [AFP]
Campbell met Myanmar’s information minister and local organisations on Tuesday for talks which Kelly said “laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue”.

“But they were mainly in a listening mode,” he added.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), told the AFP news agency that the party sees the envoys’ visit “as the start of direct engagement between the US and Myanmar government”.

“But we do not expect the exact and big change from this meeting. This visit is just a first stage,” he added.

Washington signalled a sharp shift in its policy towards Myanmar in September, saying it would be “engaging directly with Burmese authorities”, and holding the highest-level contact in a decade with Myanmar officials in New York later in the month.

But the US has also said that it will not ease sanctions on the Southeast Asian country without progress on democracy and human rights.

Larry Dinger, the charge d’affaires at the US embassy in Yangon, said in an interview published in the semi-official Myanmar Times newspaper this week that Washington wanted to make progress on “important issues” but would maintain sanctions “until concrete progress is made”.

Backing engagement

Aung San Suu Kyi has welcomed US engagement of the military government and in late September wrote a letter to Than Shwe to offer her co-operation in getting Western sanctions lifted after years of backing harsh measures against the ruling generals.

The generals granted the Nobel peace laureate two rare meetings with a government minister and allowed her to see Western diplomats last month.

Thein Sein, Myanmar’s prime minister, told Asian leaders at a summit in Thailand last month that the government sees a role for Aung San Suu Kyi in fostering reconciliation ahead of the promised elections next year, but it was not clear what form this would take.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, continues to be kept under house arrest after having her detention extended by 18 months in August over an incident in which an American man swam to her lakeside house uninvited.

Her situation will be discussed when Barack Obama, the US president, meets Southeast Asian leaders at a regional summit in Singapore in mid-November, Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore’s prime minister, said on Tuesday, adding that Thein Sein was expected to attend.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2009/11/200911435051348191.html
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US envoy in rare talks with Suu Kyi, Burma PM

• Published: 4/11/2009 at 11:03 AM
• Online news: Breakingnews

The most senior US official to visit Burma for a decade and a half held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday after the ruling junta allowed the detained Nobel laureate to make a rare public appearance.

Burma democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (C) looks on following a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell (L) at a hotel in Rangoon on November 4. The most senior US official to visit Burma for a decade and a half held talks with Aung San Suu Kyi after the ruling junta allowed the detained Nobel laureate to make a rare public appearance.

Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell, accompanied by his deputy Scot Marciel, also met Burma’s prime minister as Washington seeks a new era of engagement with the military regime.

Suu Kyi met Campbell at a luxury hotel in the former capital Rangoon, the first time she had appeared in front of the media other than at her house or in prison since the current period of her house arrest began in 2003.

Dressed in a pink and maroon traditional outfit, the 64-year-old opposition leader smiled but neither she nor the US diplomat spoke to waiting reporters as she headed into the meeting in a hotel room.

Earlier this year journalists saw her in prison at her trial for harbouring an American man who swam to her house, but they were not allowed to take pictures and the only images were released on state television. Related article: Suu Kyi meets US envoy

The junta extended her house arrest by another 18 months in August after she was found guilty, effectively ruling her out of elections due in 2010 that critics already say are a sham.

Suu Kyi has spent most of the last two decades in detention. The most recent period of her house arrest began in 2003 after pro-junta forces launched a deadly attack on her convoy during a political campaign.

Campbell and Marciel earlier Wednesday held talks with Prime Minister Thein Sein in the remote administrative capital Naypyidaw, Burma officials said on condition of anonymity.

Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi (R) and US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Kurt Campbell leave following their meeting at a hotel in Yangon on Nov 4.

Burma officials said the US delegation was not expected to meet reclusive junta leader Than Shwe. State media said that when the US envoys arrived he was in southern Burma inspecting aid efforts after last year’s Cyclone Nargis.

Campbell is the highest ranking US official to travel to Burma — formerly known as Burma — since Madeleine Albright went as US ambassador to the United Nations in 1995 during Bill Clinton’s presidency.

The two-day trip is a follow-up to discussions in New York in September between US and Burma officials, the highest-level US contact with the regime in nearly a decade.

The Obama administration in September announced a dramatic change in US policy because isolating Burma had failed, but said it would not ease sanctions without progress on democracy and human rights.

US State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said overnight that the current visit was the “first step, or I guess I should say the second step in the beginning of a dialogue with Burma.”

Asked what Campbell discussed on Tuesday in talks with the information minister and local organisations, Kelly said: “They laid out the way we see this relationship going forward, how we should structure this dialogue, but they were mainly in a listening mode.”

September’s talks had called for free and fair elections and the release of Suu Kyi, but also dealt with US concerns about Burma’s possible military links with nuclear-armed North Korea.

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, has said the visit is the “start of direct engagement between the US and Burma government” but added that the party was not expecting any “big change”.

The junta refused to acknowledge the NLD’s landslide win in Burma’s last elections, in 1990. The United States toughened sanctions after the regime cracked down on protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007.

But in the first major sign of a thaw, leader Than Shwe in August held an unprecedented meeting with visiting US senator Jim Webb, which yielded the release of John Yettaw, the American detained for swimming to Suu Kyi’s lakeside house.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/breakingnews/159043/us-envoy-in-rare-talks-with-suu-kyi-burma-pm
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