Myanmar/US - Jim Webb visit

US Senator meets junta leader Than Shwe

Article published on the 2009-08-14 Latest update 2009-08-14 15:07 TU

Young NLD members outside the party headquarters in July
(Photo: Reuters)

Myanmar democracy campaigners on Friday urged US Senator Jim Webb to talk tough in his historic meeting with military ruler Than Shwe. They hope he will press for change in the country and not restrict his aims to freeing jailed US citizen John Yettaw.

"US Senator Jim Webb's visit and attempt to engage with the top regime leadership is a welcome move," British-based academic and activist Maung Zarni told RFI.

Zarni, who is a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for the Study of Global Governance and founder of the Free Burma Coalition, believes that the media are wrong to describe the military regime as "isolated".

"Webb should know the Burmese regime is not as isolated as it is made out in the policy and media discourses," he says. "How could a regime that is engaged economically with the global gas and, mining and timber oil industries - including that of France, USA, Italy, Canada, Australia, and receive political and economic support from almost the whole lot of Asian governments internationally, be considered 'isolated'?"

Zarni urges Webb  to avoid "the cardinal mistake" made by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon "in believing that General Than Shwe responds to persuasion and minced words".

There has been speculation that Webb hopes to gain the release of John Yettaw, the American who faced trial alongside National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi because he swam to her home while she was under house arrest.

"The best thing Webb can do to help promote the cause for Burmese
freedom and democracy is not simply focus on securing the American
intruder John Yettaw," says Zarni. "But to deliver a brutally honest message - that the General has failed the country and people and is seen almost universally, even in Asia, as a Class A criminal."

Webb arrived in the newly-built capital, Naypyidaw, on Friday, coming from Laos where he started a two-week tour of the region. The NLD said that the authorities have invited four senior members of the party to go to the capital  Friday to meet "an important person". They have accepted the invitation.

Webb is a Vietnam War veteran and chairs the Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee on East Asia and Pacific affairs and is close to President Barack Obama. But his mission is not an official one.

Coming after former US President Bill Clinton's visit to North Korea, such unofficial initiatives seem to be becoming a habit, according to French analyst Philippe Moreau-Defarges.

"Let's just say that the Obama administration has a programme by which the President likes personal representatives to go and see the leaders of rogue states or dangerous regimes," he told RFI's French service.

On Thursday the European Union slapped extra sanctions on Myanmar's leaders, while the UN Security Council has expressed "serious concern"  at Suu Kyi's detention.

The official New Light of Myanmar on Friday declared that Than Shwe's order to reduce Suu Kyi's sentence was a sign that the regime is open to change.