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Hillary: We’ll talk to Burma
Ed Harris24 Sep 2009
Hillary Clinton said today that the US would engage in direct high-level talks with Burma's ruling junta in an effort to promote democracy in the military-run state.
The US Secretary of State made the announcement at the United Nations after meeting her counterparts from several countries trying to convince the authoritarian regime to reform.
Mrs Clinton said sanctions alone had not changed the junta's behaviour. The new approach follows a review of US policy towards Burma begun after Barack Obama took office.
Burma's hardline regime has refused to release political prisoners, including Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, despite international outrage. US sanctions against members of Burma's leadership would remain in place, Mrs Clinton said.
“We believe that sanctions remain important as part of our policy, but by themselves they have not produced the results that had been hoped for on behalf of the people of Burma.
“Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice in our opinion.” The move is the latest in a series of reversals of the foreign policy of the President Bush regime by Mr Obama's national security team. The new administration is reaching out to Iran and has scrapped elements of Mr Bush's plan to construct a missile shield in eastern Europe.
The Bush administration had shunned Burma in protest at its unrelenting crackdowns on opposition groups.
Burma, which has been ruled by the military since 1962, currently holds almost 2,200 political prisoners, according to estimates by human rights groups. None of them, however, is as well known as pro-democracy leader Ms Suu Kyi.
She has been detained for 14 of the past 20 years, and a wave of international pressure to release the 64-year-old opposition leader has kept the impoverished country under sanctions in recent years.
Last month, Ms Suu Kyi was sentenced to another 18 months under house arrest for allowing an American intruder to stay at her home, ensuring that she cannot participate in next year's planned election.
Reader views (1)
The obvious and right US choice is stiffening sanctions. Talk is good but can't work without the key players. Imagine negotiating the end of apartheid with Mandela still in jail. The Foreign Office are non-responsive and unaccountable on their future policy, suggesting David Miliband has gone soft on Burma too. Meanwhile, far from the Junta making any genuine moves towards democracy, Burma is heading for deepening humanitarian disaster and civil war. What is Hillary Clinton going to do next after engagement fails?
- Paul Barasi, London, England, 25/09/2009 00:15
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