Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained Burmese democracy leader, held a rare meeting with Britain’s ambassador to Rangoon today amid growing hints that she might compromise on her support for sanctions against the country’s military junta.
Diplomats from the United States and Australia, as well as the British ambassador Andrew Heyn, representing the European Union, spent an hour with Ms Suu Kyi at a state guest house in Rangoon in what was described by her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), as an information-gathering exercise.
It comes after unprecedented overtures by Ms Suu Kyi to the military government that has ruled Burma for 47 years.
Two weeks ago she sent a letter to General Than Shwe, the leader of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), proposing co-operation with the SPDC on lifting sanctions imposed on Burma. She asked for permission to be temporarily released from her house arrest to meet members of her own party and Western diplomats.
Those present at today’s meeting did not go into detail about the discussions, but Mr Heyn said that, despite past bouts of ill health, Ms Suu Kyi appeared to be well. “She is in remarkable form for someone who has been through what she has,” he said after the meeting. “She was very, very engaged on the subject, very interested in going into details and she seemed, as ever, very eloquent.”
This week Ms Suu Kyi had two meetings with Aung Kyi, the junta representative responsible for liaising with her.
In today’s meeting with the diplomats, she asked them about the details of the sanctions imposed by their governments. There will be lengthy negotiations before Ms Suu Kyi, or Western governments, agree to drop their support for sanctions and they will no doubt require significant concessions from the junta. But the process appears to have begun.
“She wants to lift the sanctions but she also wants to know about them,” the NLD's spokesman, Nyan Win, said. “She wants to know about the consequences of the sanctions and the opinions of the countries that have imposed them. If she gets that information she can help to lift the sanctions.”
“The full position won’t become clear for a while,” Mr Heyn said after the meeting – the first between Ms Suu Kyi and a British ambassador since 2003. “But clearly this is something that will be discussed in Brussels as a matter of urgency.”
Since the junta’s crackdown on the “Saffron revolution” of Buddhist monks in 2007 and the arrest and trial of political prisoners which followed, more and more politicians around the world have come to the conclusion that sanctions against Burma have been ineffective.
In February, the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said: “Clearly the path we have taken in imposing sanctions hasn't influenced the Burmese junta [but] reaching out and trying to engage them has not influenced them either.” This week, her French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, put it even more bluntly. “Sanctions are useless and everyone recognises that,” he said. “Should we not then show a greater openness to this Government?”
The EU as a whole, as well as the US, takes a more cautious view. In unveiling a new Burma strategy last month, the Assistant Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, said that the US was prepared to talk directly to the regime but that sanctions would be lifted only in return for progress on democratisation and improved human rights.
“We intend to begin a direct dialogue with the Burmese authorities,” he said. “We are prepared to sit down, but also recognise that nothing has changed yet on the ground ... Lifting or easing sanctions at the outset of a dialogue without meaningful progress on our concerns would be a mistake and would send the wrong message.”
Mr Heyn said: “The fact is the regime makes a public point of complaining about sanctions which suggest to us that they are having an effect. We have also made clear that we will respond to substantive progress towards democratisation and respect for human rights, but we have to see concrete progress on the ground.”
timesonline
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