November 9, 2012
President Barack Obama to visit Myanmar, Cambodia as well as Thailand
by Lindsay Murdoch, Bangkok
PRESIDENT Barack Obama has surprised a universe by selecting to go to Myanmar/Burma dual weeks after his re-election, a initial outing by a US President to a republic rising from 5 decades of odious troops rule.
The outing will have huge symbolic significance for Burma, additionally known as Myanmar, where President Thein Sein has overseen thespian reforms as well as where a pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to become opposition leader as well as a part of of parliament.
The White House has announced that Mr Obama will encounter Thein Sein in a opulent capital, Naypyitaw, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi at her colonial lakeside home in Rangoon, where she spent 15 years underneath house arrest. The visit will shore-up Thein Sein's care as well as broach a blow to a ageing generals who think a reforms have left as well far, as well fast.
It will be viewed with concern in Beijing, that has for decades been Burma's closest ally.
The visit is likely to intermix a influence of China in a nation that is strategically located in between India as well as China, a region's dual large powers. Mr Obama will broach a approach message to a people of Burma, who have been Asia's poorest. White House press secretary Jay Carney pronounced Mr Obama intended to "speak to polite multitude to inspire Burma's continuing democratic transition".
The visit will additionally reinforce a Obama administration's push to make firm a troops as well as political rendezvous with Asia, that is seen as a opposite to a climb of China. He additional! ly skele ton to visit Thailand, where he will encounter Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, as well as Cambodia to attend a limit of East Asian leaders as well as their key partners. There, a hot issue will be China's aggressive territorial claims in a South China Sea, that could boar seeds of conflict.
No US President has ever visited Cambodia. The visit to Burma will not be 
without risks for Mr Obama, since a reforms underneath approach in a nation have been fragile.
Human rights groups will contend he should not go there until Thein Sein's political as well as mercantile reforms have been consolidated.
There has additionally been renewed violence in between Buddhists as well as Rohingya Muslims in a west of a country.
Tens of thousands of Rohingya, between a world's most persecuted people, have been forced to flee their homes, while critics contend a government is not doing sufficient to protect them.
And a protracted war against ethnic Kachin is additionally underneath approach in Burma's north. But a Obama administration department department regards a efforts to support Burma's change to democracy as a single of a most critical foreign process achievements.
Hillary Clinton became a initial US secretary of state to go to Burma in 56 years when she went there in December.
As President Thein Sein released political prisoners, carried media bans as well as implemented mercantile as well as political reforms, a Obama administration department department moved fast to end US isolation of Burma's generals by easing sanctions as well as returning an envoy to a country, moves inconceivable reduction than dual years ago.
Source: http://www.smh.com.au
Read More @ Source More Barisan Nasional (BN) | Pakatan Rakyat (PR) | Sociopolitics Plus |
No comments:
Post a Comment