Mizzima News - USDA Secretary to visit Japan
by Nem Davies
Wednesday, 19 August 2009 19:38
New Delhi (Mizzima) - A Burmese delegation led by the Secretary of the pro-junta civil organisation – the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) – will leave for Japan on a good will mission on Wednesday evening.
The delegation’s week-long tour follows an invitation by the Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone. The delegation will be led by USDA Secretary U Htay Oo, who is also the Minister for Agriculture and Irrigation. He will be accompanied by Tin Htut Oo, Director General of the Agricultural Department and other officials including those of the Military Affairs Security (MAS).
The delegation will leave on Wednesday evening for Bangkok on a TG flight and will arrive in Tokyo on Thursday morning on a Nippon Airlines flight..
In Japan, the delegation will put up at the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo. On Thursday it will visit the Buddha statue located in a popular tourist attraction centre - Kamakura, north of Tokyo.
On August 23 and 24, the delegation is scheduled to meet Japanese opposition Members of Parliament. On August 25 it will meet the Japanese Foreign Minister. The same evening it will meet the Deputy Agriculture Minister.
While the trip is being termed as a friendly visit, it is also expected to be part of the Burmese junta’s lobbying of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), currently the opposition party. The DPJ is expected to win the August 30 elections in Japan.
The pro-junta USDA led delegation, earlier, paid official visits to China and Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the USDA is planning to organise a nation-wide conference in October at its newly constructed office in Burma’s jungle capital city of Naypyitaw.
Sources in the USDA leadership said, the ruling military junta is likely to announce the electoral law for the 2010 general elections before the conference in October. The conference is expected to fully endorse the junta’s plan.
The USDA office, located in a remote area of Naypyitaw along the Rangoon highway, is heading for completion.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Mizzima News - USDA Secretary to visit Japan
THE NATION - The US lays down new rules of engagement on Burma
By KAVI CHONGKITTAVORN
Published on August 19, 2009
KUDOS must go to Senator Jim Webb, the chairman of the US Senate Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs for East and Southeast Asia, who secured the release of John Yettaw over the weekend on humanitarian grounds.
He also met with the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, which was rather unusual at this juncture. But he failed to convince the Burmese junta leader General Than Shwe to give in to his third request - lifting her house arrest. As things stand, for the next eighteen months this issue will be the main focus of tense negotiations between the US and Burma, with far-reaching implications for Asean and regional players.
It was interesting to note that Than Shwe was silent on the issue of Suu Kyi's terms of house arrest. For Webb, it was a good sign, as he personally did not treat it as a rejection of any kind. As such, he still views the junta's attitude with optimism.
As a Vietnam War hero coupled with his experience in dealing with the aftermath of the Vietnam War including sanctions, Webb is extremely confident that he can accomplish results in Burma - that is, increasing engagement, ending sanctions and bringing investment to the country. He hopes that such moves will reduce China's influence there, as well as in the region.
On that score, the Burmese have maximised Webb's visit, knowing full well his Vietnam history, senatorial power and close connections to both US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. By backing Webb's initiative, Burma's junta has managed to kill quite a few birds with one stone. Firstly, it has somewhat altered its image of a pariah state into one of a goodwill state with a merciful leader. Secondly, the trip has helped the international community to refocus on ways to secure Suu Kyi's freedom. Certainly, nobody, except the junta leaders, knows what her fate will be in the coming days and weeks. Thirdly, the junta now has ample time until October to ponder its next move, especially in response to moves that come from Asean. Finally, it shows Burma's diplomatic finesse in broadening its international outlook by engaging with the US directly - which no one would have thought possible just a few days ago. North Korea has been trying to do this for decades but has not been very successful.
Apart from Suu Kyi's current house arrest, the junta knows that the international community will only accept an inclusive election, scheduled for next year, with the participation of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
During the meeting between Webb, Suu Kyi and members of the NLD, conditions under which they would participate in the election were discussed. They saw eye to eye that pushing for Suu Kyi's freedom will continue, and that ways must be found to ensure that the opposition is part of the electoral process. According to a well-informed diplomatic source, who asked not to be identified, Suu Kyi has declined to state her position on the upcoming election unless she has a party position.
At this juncture, it depends on how the US government wants to engage with Burma in the coming months, especially after its review on Burmese policy which has been delayed for months. Will Washington want to find an exit strategy for the regime it has condemned for decades?
If Webb has his way, he would like to do so. He would move forward to reduce sanctions and to provide additional incentives for the junta to respond constructively. His wartime experience taught him to take whatever one has and to work with it. Unfortunately, his maverick approach is not widely supported by the Burmese community in exile and colleagues in the US Congress.
With such a drastic development, Asean has a lot of catching up to do. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya is seeking a consensus among the grouping to urge Burma to free Suu Kyi. But half of the Asean members (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma and Brunei) do not want such a statement. They consider it an infringement of national sovereignty.
In the coming days, the core Asean members have to decide if they want to hold a special ministerial meeting on Burma, as suggested by Malaysia. It is a Catch 22 situation for Asean. Holding such a ministerial meeting - known as a minus-x formula - would be unprecedented since the Cambodian conflict (1978-1992). It would also reveal the huge rift within Asean on the issue of Burma. After the Phuket meeting, Asean members agreed that Kasit should fly to Burma for further talks. However, like previous Asean efforts, without a strong and sustained Asean position, the junta leaders will just turn a blind eye, as they have always done.
With the US diplomatic offensive on Burma, China's role in and interest inside Burma will be exposed further. Webb has been bothered by China's ever-growing influence there. He has argued constantly that China's gain in Burma is at the expense of US strategic interests in the region. As a global power, he thinks Beijing should be doing more to push for national reconciliation and stability inside Burma.
With this new diplomatic pressure, China also needs to rethink its own Burmese strategy by collaborating more with Asean - something that Beijing has been avoiding.
The conventional wisdom has been that Asean has never attained a consensus view on Burma that China could back diplomatically. Now, with a new twist, the time has come for Asean and China to work together on Burma - not to placate the US effort but to maintain China's regional credibility.
China failing on Myanmar, key US senator says
HANOI (AFP) – China has failed to show leadership in solving the political stalemate in Myanmar, a United States senator who made a landmark visit to the military-ruled country said in Vietnam Wednesday.
Senator Jim Webb arrived in Vietnam after securing at the weekend the release of an American man who swam to the house of Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
During his Myanmar visit, Webb became the first US official to speak with the junta's reclusive leader, Than Shwe.
The senator also met Suu Kyi without winning freedom for the Nobel laureate, whose house arrest was extended over the bizarre stunt by John Yettaw.
"When I returned to Bangkok from Myanmar I raised my view at that time, with respect to the issues in Myanmar, that the Chinese government should step forward and show leadership in assisting in solving that situation, and they have not done that yet," Webb told a Hanoi press conference on the last leg of a two-week Southeast Asian tour.
Beijing has long helped keep Myanmar afloat through trade ties, arms sales, and by shielding it from United Nations sanctions over rights abuses. China is a veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council.
The European Union, United States and other countries have targeted Myanmar with economic sanctions and travel bans but the military regime has so far proven impervious to these, partly due to support from nations including China.
While the US Congress has overwhelmingly backed trade restrictions against Myanmar, Webb has been a critic of sanctions and said in Bangkok that they had allowed Beijing to increase "dramatically" its influence in Myanmar.
The administration of President Barack Obama, particularly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has indicated it is not keen on using sanctions as a diplomatic tool.
Webb, a Democrat and former Marine who served in Vietnam, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia.
Yettaw flew home to the US on Wednesday after receiving medical tests in Bangkok but Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, sentenced earlier this month to a further 18 months because of Yettaw's actions.
The ruling means she will be locked up during elections promised by the ruling junta in 2010.
Webb, who first returned to Vietnam 18 years ago, was to visit government officials and business leaders on his latest trip.
Asked whether he would seek the release of any Vietnamese prisoners, he said discussions over the political evolution of communist Vietnam are "an ongoing process" but he was not raising the matter on this trip.
In July, a group of US lawmakers said they were calling for the release of more than 100 non-violent Vietnamese political prisoners, some of them held for criticising the government, as part of an annual September 2 amnesty.
Vietnam says it does not punish anyone for political views and only prosecutes criminals for breaking the law.
Webb also visited Laos and Cambodia as part of his five-nation Southeast Asian tour whose purpose was "to emphasise how important Southeast Asia is to the United States".
He noted that Secretary of State Clinton has twice visited the region this year, showing "how we want to reinvigorate, from the United States' perspective, our relations in this region".
Clinton's signing in July of a friendship pact with Southeast Asia sent a strong signal of the US desire to deepen ties and counter China's increasing influence, diplomats said.
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