WASHINGTON — Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will be honored in Washington
this week and presented Congress’s highest award, the latest milestone in her
remarkable journey from political prisoner to globe-trotting stateswoman.
The Nobel Peace Laureate’s 17-day
US tour, starting Monday, will include meetings at the State Department and
most likely the White House. She then goes to New York, the American Midwest
and California. The trip comes as the Obama administration considers easing its
remaining sanctions on the military-dominated country officially known as
Myanmar.
Since her release from house
arrest in late 2010, Suu Kyi has transitioned from dissident to parliamentarian
as Burma has shifted from five decades of repressive military rule, gaining
international acceptance for a former pariah regime.
After being confined to her
homeland since 1989 because she was either under detention or afraid she
wouldn’t be permitted to return, Suu Kyi has in the past four months spread her
wings. She has traveled to Thailand and five nations in Europe, where she was
accorded honors usually reserved for heads of state.
Revered by Republicans and
Democrats alike, Suu Kyi will get star treatment too in the US, although her
schedule is being carefully planned to avoid upstaging the itinerary of Burmese
President Thein Sein, who arrives in the US the following week to attend the UN
General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders in New York.
“The idea that she will be at the
Rotunda of the US Capitol, to receive the highest award Congress can give, just
a couple of years after she was under house arrest in her own country, is just
remarkable,” said Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley, one of the lawmakers who
sponsored her 2008 award of the Congressional Gold Medal.
For years, some of Washington’s
most powerful politicians have been among Suu Kyi’s strongest advocates, and
it’s been a rare area of bipartisan consensus. Both when sanctions against the
Burmese junta were imposed, and over the past year when they have been
suspended, Democrats and Republicans have found common cause.
The Obama administration is now
considering easing a ban on imports from Myanmar into the US, the main plank
remaining in the tough economic sanctions that Washington has chipped away at
this year to reward the progress toward democracy.
While Congress last month renewed
sanctions for another year, President Barack Obama could waive its provisions.
He may, however, look for further concrete action by Burma to earn it—such as
the releases of hundreds of political prisoners who remain in detention despite
the freeing of hundreds of other dissidents this year.
Suu Kyi is under political
pressure from Thein Sein’s government to press the US to remove the
restrictions—and it is a step that she appears open to, although many of her
longtime supporters in exile oppose it, saying Burma should not be rewarded at
a time when ethnic violence is escalating in some parts of the country.
“We don’t want to say whether the
US should maintain the import ban or not,” Suu Kyi’s party spokesman Nyan Win
said ahead of her visit. “I understand the US is keeping the import ban because
they want to keep a watch on the country’s political and economic reform and I
think the US should continue to observe [the situation].”
Combining high-level meetings
with award ceremonies and get-togethers with Burmese expatriates, Suu Kyi will
have a frenetic schedule in the US.
She spends four days in
Washington, where she will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—who
made a landmark visit to Burma last December—and House and Senate leaders. The
White House has yet to announce whether she will meet President Barack Obama.
Suu Kyi will also address human rights activists and meet Burmese journalists
at Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
She then travels to New York,
where she worked from 1969-71 at the United Nations. Her schedule is carefully
arranged not to clash with Thein Sein’s but she is slated to attend a
high-level meeting organized by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a day before
the Burmese president addresses the General Assembly.
Suu Kyi will then go to
Kentucky—home state of Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell—to address the
University of Louisville, before traveling to meet with one of America’s
largest Burmese communities in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She will also visit San Francisco
and Los Angeles.
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, you may contact us at: sbc.pte@gmail.com, provisionally. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment