Bangkok (Mizzima) – A senior American diplomat is set to visit Burma today to try to kick-start Washington’s lagging engagement policy with the junta, according to Burmese officials.
The US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, Dr. Kurt Campbell, was scheduled to start a two-day visit to Burma today, according to government officials in the capital, Naypyidaw. But senior US officials have been tight-lipped, refusing to confirm the visit or give details despite repeated requests.
But US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in Washington on Friday that the planned visit would only go ahead if the diplomat’s request to see the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was granted.
During Campbell’s trip, he was expected to meet Ms. Suu Kyi, other leaders of her now defunct party, the National League for Democracy, representatives of ethnic groups and key representatives of the junta, a senior Burmese military official told Mizzima on condition of anonymity.
It would be the American diplomat’s second visit to Burma in the past six months. His first in November – the highest-ranking US official to visit in 14 years – followed Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s announcement last year that US policy towards the Burmese military regime had changed to one of maintaining existing sanctions while engaging the generals in dialogue.
He was denied an audience with junta chief Senior General Than Shwe but may meet him on this trip, senior military sources said. The credibility of the elections planned for this year and the dissolution of the NLD after its decision not to contest them will feature prominently during his talks with the government and the opposition.
“We certainly are very concerned about the election laws and the situation facing the NLD,” Campbell aide Scot Marciel, the US Ambassador to Asean, told Mizzima recently. “The laws put the opposition in a very difficult position.”
Washington has already taken a hard line on the elections and dismissed them as neither free nor fair. The process can neither be credible nor inclusive while more than 2,000 political prisoners remain in jail and Suu Kyi is barred from taking part, US diplomats, officials and lawmakers have continued to stress.
The last time Campbell and Marciel visited Burma they left empty-handed. This time there will be pressure on the regime to give the US administration some incentive to keep its engagement policy and not increase sanctions, as several senior US congressmen have been demanding.
“The key concession Campbell may be hoping for from the regime is the release of a large number of political prisoners, or even a general amnesty, after all, this is an issue which Washington has taken a consistently strong line on,” Professor David Steinberg, a Burma specialist and director of Asian studies at Georgetown University in the US capital, Washington, told Mizzima.
Shortly, Than Shwe planned to release a host of political prisoners, including some former military intelligence officers associated with the former intelligence chief and prime minister, General Khin Nyunt, according to sources close to the junta chief.
But the US will also be concerned about the future of the pro-democracy activists, including Suu Kyi – especially after the NLD was officially dissolved last Thursday – and a new party, the National Democratic Force, formed by 28 former members of the NLD who want to contest the elections.
“Burma’s new election laws are a step backwards,” Marciel said. “They are effectively preventing the main opposition party from participating. This is the opposite of the path towards national reconciliation.”
Campbell’s visit is to come at a crucial time: just after the effective demise of the NLD and ahead of the formal start of election campaigning. More than 30 parties have sought approval from the newly formed Election Commission, with the vast majority of them pro-junta or ethnic groups. The main pitfall for the US diplomat is to avoid being used by the regime to appear to give government-backed parties any political recognition or credibility.
“Secretary Campbell needs to be extremely cautious about the possibility of the regime exploiting his visit for photo-ops,” said Dr. Maung Zarni, a research fellow on Burma at the London School of Economics and a visiting senior fellow at Chulalongkorn University Institute of Security and International Studies in Thailand.
In particular, Zarni told Mizzima that Campbell should avoid meeting people such as former student activist Aye Lwin, who gained notoriety over his attacks on Suu Kyi and has formed a pro-junta party, the Union of Myanmar National Political Force.
“At the same time, he must not allow himself to be fooled by the presence and activities of the non-NLD organisations, as all groups, parties and local NGOs in Burma today, exist only at the whim of the generals,” Zarni added.
Than Shwe is concerned about the mounting global opposition to the elections, a process he apparently hoped would give a measure of legitimacy to the civilianised government that emerges after the polls. Many Asian countries are also publicly and privately raising their concerns with the regime.
The US push is also timed to persuade the regime that its engagement process will continue after the polls, no matter who formally leads the new government.
“Whatever government emerges from the elections, they need to be pushed in the direction of openness and reform, and must be convinced that more positive relations with the West are possible if they do so,” Richard Horsey, the former International Labour Organisation representative in Rangoon and author of several detailed reports on the forthcoming elections, told Mizzima. “Continued US engagement is critical for this, and Campbell’s visit may help this process.”
In the meantime, the US diplomat will be testing the waters to see how far the regime is prepared to bend towards Washington. He may also try to convince the junta to make the election as free and fair as possible, although his top priority is bound to be trying to encourage the NLD to use whatever opportunities left to them to continue the fight for democracy.
However, any concessions toward an inclusive and credible electoral process will be hard to wring out of the regime.
It was never going to be easy, Marciel confided to Mizzima in Bangkok after the envoys’ visit in November. “We predicted it would be a long and difficult process, and unfortunately we were right,” he said recently.
