Obama to meet with Burma leaders?

posted at 12:00 pm on November 15, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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The US has maintained a policy of isolating the military junta of Burma for decades, refusing to use the junta’s name for the country (Myanmar) as a symbolic rejection of their authority.  Earlier this year, however, the Obama administration announced that they had undertaken a review of that policy, and was widely expected to broaden diplomatic contacts with the regime.  Sen. James Webb met with the junta leaders in a widely-criticized trip earlier this year that possibly intended to lend a little legitimacy to that effort.  Now the Washington Times reports that Barack Obama himself will meet with junta leaders in Singapore just four months after the US stopped a shipment of North Korean weapons from reaching the dictators:

President Obama on Sunday will become the first American president in more than 40 years to attend a meeting with the repressive rulers of Myanmar, marking a dramatic shift in the U.S. approach to bringing change to a regime that responds brutally to dissent, locks up journalists and political opponents, and has kept itself largely walled off from the Western world.

Formerly known as Burma, Myanmar has for years played the role of skunk in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, known as ASEAN, repeatedly preventing the group from attracting participation from the United States. But Mr. Obama came to office promising to extend an open hand to rogue states in the hopes of changing the dynamics.

“The policies of the international community have not in two decades produced positive results,” said Jeffrey Bader, a special assistant to the president for national security. “One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect a different outcome. Twenty years is long enough.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced in February that the U.S. was reviewing its policy toward Myanmar, saying that neither sanctions nor engagement – the preferred policy of Myanmar’s neighbors – had nudged the military rulers toward democratic reforms. The new American policy was announced in late September, described as a carrot-and-stick effort, with the U.S. agreeing to talk to the junta and to relax sanctions if conditions are met.

At the same time, Obama demanded the release of longtime democracy activist — and fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner — Aung San Suu Kyi:

At a meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) this morning, President Obama reaffirmed his call for Myanmar’s ruling junta to free democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

President Obama used the same language at the closed-door meeting that he used in a public address in Tokyo on Saturday, an aide reported, saying of Myanmar, also known as Burma, that “there are clear steps that must be taken – the unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi; an end to conflicts with minority groups; and a genuine dialogue between the government, the democratic opposition and minority groups on a shared vision for the future.” …

Myanmar’s prime minister, General Thein Sein — appointed interim prime minister in 2007 by the ruling military junta — was in the room. It was not clear what his reaction was to that part of President Obama’s remarks.

The reason that the US and the UN have demanded her release is not just because Kyi is a democracy activist, and not just because her detention is predicated on her exercise of political speech and dissent from the junta.  She was elected to office as Prime Minister of Burma in 1990, and the junta prevented her from taking office by arresting her.  Kyi is the legitimate leader of the country, and the junta are usurpers and dictators.

Meeting with the junta leaders while calling for them to release Kyi is rather self-defeating.  It grants them legitimacy of seizing power through the gun.  This is the same administration that refused to recognize the interim government in Honduras after their parliament and Supreme Court had Manuel Zelaya arrested for committing crimes against their constitution, a move that the Law Library of Congress declared valid and legal, and reaffirmed when John Kerry demanded they retract their opinion.  We still have not restored full diplomatic contact and visa service to Honduras for their crime of removing someone who violated the law, but now Obama wants to meet with military dictators who have kept the lawfully elected leader of their country locked away for 19 years?

Furthermore, the sanctions have weakened and isolated the junta.  Three years ago, Burma analyst Dr. Sydney Turnell made that clear to Congress:

As shall be examined below, economic sanctions are necessary in Burma to help dislodge the real obstacle to the country’s economic development. This obstacle, the regime that has been oppressing the country for four decades, has never given any hint that it can engage in meaningful economic reform. …

It is the elite of Burma’s economy, instead, who are most affected by the sanctions thus far imposed on the country. A sizeable number of this elite are ‘connected’ with the ruling regime in Burma, and a high proportion are personally related to the members of the SPDC itself. Sanctions are likely to contribute to a successful policy when the relevant incentives of important groups are consistent with the change desired. The sanctions currently imposed upon Burma, by the EU but most effectively by the United States, seem to meet this requirement. …

Rewarding Burma through the removal of sanctions, despite its leaders’ recalcitrance yet at the moment that pressures upon them seem to be building, is surely ill-advised.

Too bad Dr. Tunell didn’t recommend these sanctions for Honduras.  Obama had no problem betraying a close US ally over what Obama incorrectly claimed was a coup.  When faced with the real thing, Obama has no problem leaving a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner twisting in the wind.  That’s certainly “change” … of the wrong sort.

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