Alan Blinkhorn - Urgent News: U.S. to send Hillary Clinton to Myanmar

Alan Blinkhorn - Urgent News: U.S. to send Hillary Clinton to Myanmar

Bali, Indonesia (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to visit Myanmar next month on a trip that could signal a major change in relations between the two countries.

Clinton will be the first American secretary of state in 50 years to visit Myanmar, a country that the West has long criticized for its hostility toward democracy and its record on human rights.

President Barack Obama made the announcement Friday after after talking with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released one year ago after spending 15 of the previous 21 years under house arrest for her opposition to authoritarian rule in the southeast Asian nation.

Clinton's trip is an indication that Myanmar, also known as Burma, has made some progress toward democracy and that the time could be right to forge a new relationship between the nations, the White House said.

"That possibility will depend upon the Burmese government taking more concrete action," Obama said. "If Burma fails to move down the path of reform, it will continue to face sanctions and isolation. But if it seizes this moment, then reconciliation can prevail, and millions of people may get the chance to live with a greater measure of freedom, prosperity and dignity. And that possibility is too important to ignore."

Clinton plans to test whether Myanmar is committed to both economic and political reform, she told CNN Friday.

"There certainly does seem to be an opening," she said. "How real it is, how far it goes -- we will have to make sure we have a better understanding than we do right now."

In a possible sign of progress toward democracy, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy met Friday and announced she will run in the next parliamentary elections, as yet unscheduled. The group also decided to re-enter politics.

"NLD has decided to re-register as a political party and will participate in all elections in the future, as there are many demands from our people to do this," said Kyi Toe, the party's information officer.

Speaking in Yangon on Monday, Suu Kyi told journalists and diplomats that in addition to her yearnings for political freedom for the country, she "deeply believed that the president (of Myanmar) also wants a change."

Suu Kyi was was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.

Since her release, Suu Kyi has met repeatedly with Myanmar's President Thein Sein and the country's minister for labor and for social welfare, relief and resettlement, Aung Kyi. Obama planned to see Sein at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Friday; he announced Clinton's visit to Myanmar while traveling from Australia to Indonesia to attend the ASEAN economic summit.

The country's military-controlled government has won limited praise from international human rights groups for making some progress toward political freedoms in the past year. It released dozens of political prisoners last month as part of a mass amnesty that will eventually free 6,300 prisoners, according to the government -- a key demand of Suu Kyi and a priority for the West.


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