WASHINGTON — Fresh from his historic re-election on Tuesday, Barack Obama will make
history again later this month by becoming the first US president to visit
Burma.
Although rumors of the
51-year-old’s visit have been circulating for days, the White House has finally
confirmed that he will touch down in the former pariah state on Nov. 19.
“In Burma, the president will
meet with President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi and speak to civil society
to encourage Burma’s ongoing democratic transition,” an official statement
revealed on Thursday, a day after Obama returned from Chicago following his
victory in Tuesday’s presidential elections.
However, the White House did not
release details of whether the 44th US president would be travelling to just
Rangoon, Naypyidaw, both or elsewhere in the country.
Obama’s trip is part of a
three-nation tour to the region from Nov. 17 to 20 that will also take him to
Thailand and Cambodia. In Thailand, he will meet Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra to mark 180 years of diplomatic relations and reaffirm bilateral
ties.
“In Cambodia, the president will
attend the East Asia Summit and meet with the leaders of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations [Asean],” the White House said, adding that he will
discuss a broad range of issues including economic prosperity and job creation
through increased trade and partnerships, energy and security cooperation,
human rights, shared values and other issues of regional and global concern.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced
that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is expected to meet his Burmese counterpart
during an Asean defense minister meeting in Cambodia next week. The United
States, however, has so far ruled out any resumption of a military relationship
with Burma given concerns regarding human rights and child soldiers.
Obama’s Burma visit has been
welcomed by a top American lawmaker. “President Obama’s visit to Burma has the
opportunity to be the most significant step in the effort to support human
rights and democracy in Burma,” said Congressman Joe Crowley.
However, while praising the
substantial progress made in recent months, the 50-year-old said that there
remains much more to be done. “Too many political prisoners remain locked up, ethnic
violence must be stopped and not all necessary political reforms have been put
in place,” he said. “This is an opportunity for the Burmese government to
address these important outstanding issues.”
In January, Crowley, a seven-term
representative from the Seventh Congressional District of New York, became the
first member of the US House of Representatives to officially travel to Burma
for over 12 years.
During this trip he met with Suu
Kyi, families of political prisoners and several members of the government. In
2008, Crowley spearheaded efforts to award Suu Kyi with the Congressional Gold
Medal—the highest civilian honor bestowed by the US Congress—that she belated
received in September.
Obama’s trip to Burma is the
culmination of a series of high profile visits between the two countries. US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited Burma last December, and then Thein
Sein and Suu Kyi came to the United States this past September.
“The United States is committed
to standing with the government and the people of Burma to support this
progress that has begun but is still a work in progress,” Clinton had told a
Washington audience in mid-September when she welcomed Suu Kyi at the US
Institute of Peace.
The official announcement of
Obama’s trip comes one day after a prominent Washington-based Burmese activist
issued a letter urging the president not to travel to Burma. In the event that
he did, Aung Din, from the US Campaign for Burma, urged Obama to travel to
violence-hit areas of the country, meet minority leaders and the head of the
Burmese military.
“He should make his visit
beneficial for the people of Burma by meeting with his real counterpart,
Commander-in-Chief Gen Min Aung Hlaing, and educate him to put the military
under civilian control and serve the people of Burma,” Aung Din told The
Irrawaddy.
“[Obama should] address the Union
Parliament and encourage members of the Parliament to be courageous to amend
the 2008 Constitution to be democratic and equal among all ethnic
nationalities,”
“The president during his trip
should also meet with all political parties, civil society organizations and
former political prisoners and support their continued struggle for democracy,
human rights and national reconciliation [and] visit refugees in Kachin and
Rakhine [Arakan] states.”
No US president has ever visited
Cambodia or Burma, yet Thailand is one of America’s oldest regional allies and
has been a stop for White House incumbents since the mid-1960s. George W. Bush
visited Thailand twice in 2003 and 2008, Bill Clinton visited in 1996, Richard
Nixon traveled there in 1969 and Lyndon Johnson in 1966 and 1967, according to
official records.
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