The two-day visit by Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and Scot Marciel, deputy assistant secretary, is being seen as a clear sign of the new diplomatic policy US President Barak Obama wants to unveil in the South-east Asian nation, which is also called Myanmar.
This combo of file photos shows Kurt Campbell (L), assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and the US ambassdor for ASEAN affairs, Scot Marciel (R). (Photo: Getty Images)This US mission, from Nov. 3 to 4, marks a break from the tough line that the former US administration, under George W Bush, pursued. Campbell and Marciel, furthermore, will be the highest-ranking US officials visiting Burma after 14 years. The last to do so, in 1995, was Madeline Albright, then US ambassador to the United Nations.
The reactions among Burmese to the Obama administration’s policy shift are mixed. It stems from years of enduring a junta that has refused to cave in to outside pressure and chosen to isolate the country from world affairs. Burma’s impoverished millions have also had to endure decades of life under the iron grip of a secretive and paranoid regime that has fattened itself off the country’s immense natural resources, from natural gas to rubies.
"Generally, the people inside Burma, the more politically active, are encouraged by the policy shift of the Obama administration," said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese political analyst living in exile in Thailand. "But the Burmese political activists in exile are not sure; they are cautiously optimistic."
This mission, for one, will be a "learning curve" for both parties, he told IPS. "The Americans need to understand the Burmese military and how they operate, and the military regime will have to understand where the Americans are coming from."
How Burma’s strongman, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, treats the US visitors, and who in the military and political chain of command they meet, will serve as pointers of this diplomatic adventure. Than Shwe, after all, is notorious for coughing up excuses to avoid foreign visitors on a whim. UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon is among those deprived of the welcome mat.
"The test to measure how successful Campbell’s visit is is to see if he gets a meeting with Gen Than Shwe," said Win Min, a Burmese national security expert lecturing at a Payap University in northern Thailand. "He is known to avoid foreign visitors if it is not to his advantage."
But there are signs coming from within the military government that "welcome the change in US policy," Win Min revealed during an interview. "They see this new approach as an opportunity to work with the Obama administration in order to improve Burma’s image within the international community."
Pressure is also growing on Campbell for a meeting with the National League for Democracy (NLD), Burma’s beleaguered opposition party, in the latter’s run-down headquarters in Rangoon, the former capital. "This will be safer for the NLD leaders to talk freely and without fear of their views being secretly recorded than if the meeting was held in a government guesthouse," said a source close to the party on the condition of anonymity.
According to US media reports, Campbell and Marciel are due to meet NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent over 14 of the last 20 years under house arrest. The Nobel Peace laureate, who is cut away from her party supporters, is reported to have told her lawyer that "she is keenly monitoring Mr. Campbell’s upcoming visit and is interested in when he will come and what he will do in Burma," according to a report in The Irrawaddy, a magazine produced by Burmese journalists living in exile in Thailand.
Washington’s approach towards a country that suffers from a lack of human rights, the rule of law and democracy was spelled out recently by a ranking member of the US State Department to Burmese political activists. "The US official said that they would use pressure to coax the Burmese regime to come out of isolation," a participant at that closed-door meeting in Thailand told IPS. "It will be different from the hard-line pressure before."
"They are very realistic about how progress should be measured," the participant added. "They know success will not come early.
