Myanmar is attempting to transform from an isolated military dictatorship into a democracy. However, ethnic conflicts, including continued war in the northern Kachin state and an upsurge in communal violence against Muslim Rohingya in western Rakhine state, continue to afflict the nation. In November, Barack Obama was the first US president to visit Myanmar. Although he met with both president Thein Sein and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and used both Burma and Myanmar to refer to the country, human rights activists criticize the visit as premature, stressing that Myanmar’s leadership still needs to consolidate the proposed reforms.
By David Pilling and Gwen Robinson
In the first visit by a US president to Myanmar, Barack Obama on Monday told a visibly excited audience at Yangon University that political changes afoot were irreversible and that, after five decades of dictatorship, its people could now see and taste freedom.
Addressing a cross-section of society, including distinctively dressed representatives of ethnic groups as well as recently released political prisoners, Mr Obama said: “Something is happening in this country that cannot be reversed.”
In the past 18 months, Myanmar’s government has set in train a series of sweeping changes that hold out the promise to transform one of the world’s worst military dictatorships into a fledgling democracy. In a message to the military men in the audience, many now part of the new nominally civilian government, Mr Obama said they must accept restraints on their power. “The US has the strongest military in the world, but it must submit to civilian control,” he said.
The US president drew loud applause when he said that the most important office was not that of president but that of citizen. “You, the citizens of this country are the ones who are going to define what freedom means,” he said.
Before his speech Mr Obama met Thein Sein, the president who has propelled the country’s remarkable transformation, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who is now a member of parliament. The president also visited the dazzling golden Shwedagon Pagoda where Ms Suu Kyi launched the democracy movement in 1988 after a brutal military crackdown on students.
The streets outside Ms Suu Kyi’s house and those leading to the university were lined with people, many waving makeshift American flags. Senior Myanmar officials could hardly hide their glee that they had persuaded Mr Obama to visit the country and endorse what one said was the most dramatic transformation of a dictatorship in history. Some human rights groups said the visit was too early, though many were thankful he didn’t visit Naypyidaw, the former military government’s showcase capital.
Yangon University, the scene of repeated violent assaults on students by the military, had been hurriedly spruced up for the speech. Aung Zaw, editor of the online Irrawaddy journal, said the university was “a totally appropriate” venue for the president’s address. “This is where hundreds of students were killed,” he said, adding that the president’s visit could rejuvenate a once-great institution.
Mr Obama devoted part of his speech to Myanmar’s festering ethnic conflicts, including continued war in the northern Kachin state and an upsurge in communal violence against Muslim Rohingya in western Rakhine state. Addressing widespread prejudice against the Rohingya, he called on all communities to stop what he called “incitement to violence” after recent incidents in which 170 Rohingya were killed, thousands burnt out of their homes and more than 100,000 displaced.
Some members of the audience said they appreciated Mr Obama’s words of solidarity for the persecuted group but others were less sympathetic, arguing that the Rohingya were Bengali immigrants, not a legitimate ethnic minority. In 1982, a government commission stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship, rendering them stateless.
The president implicitly compared the Rohingya, who have darker skin than most Burmese, to himself. While once, the colour of his skin would have precluded him from voting, now he had risen to become the nation’s president, he said.
