Obama warns Myanmar's celebrated reforms backsliding

Obama warns Myanmar's celebrated reforms backsliding

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar - The United States voiced alarm on Thursday over Myanmar's "backsliding" on democratic reforms, as President Barack Obama attended a regional summit meant to showcase the country's transition from army-led isolation.

Obama was set to raise powderkeg rights issues in a meeting with his Myanmar counterpart Thein Sein - a former general turned reformer - late Thursday on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Myanmar's capital, Naypyidaw.

Obama set the tone for his meeting with hard-hitting comments on the pace of reforms in an interview with Myanmar news website The Irrawaddy published just before he arrived on Wednesday night for a three-day trip.

"One of the main messages that I'll deliver on this visit is that the government of Myanmar has a responsibility to ensure the safety and well-being of all people in the country, and that the fundamental human rights and freedoms of all people should be respected," Obama said.

"Even as there has been some progress on the political and economic fronts, in other areas there has been a slowdown and backsliding in reforms.

"In addition to restrictions on freedom of the press, we continue to see violations of basic human rights and abuses in the country's ethnic areas, including reports of extrajudicial killings, rape and forced labour." Obama planned to speak out on behalf of the nation's Muslim Rohingya minority in "all of his engagements" in Myanmar, his deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, told reporters on Thursday.

Around 140,000 Rohingya languish in fetid displacement camps in western Rakhine State after religious violence flared two years ago, leaving scores of the minority dead and casting a dark cloud over the nation's pathway towards democracy.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday also raised the "serious humanitarian" condition of the Rohingya.

Optimism wanes

Obama will also meet opposition leader and Democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon on Friday in a show of support to his fellow Nobel laureate, who he visited on his first trip to the country in 2012.

Suu Kyi had preceded Obama's trip with her own warning against "over-optimism" about democracy in Myanmar, as the nation heads for crucial general elections next year.

She is campaigning to change the junta-era constitution which currently bars her from the presidency, even if her party is successful in the polls, and earmarks a quarter of the legislature for unelected soldiers.

Obama has framed Myanmar's reform process, which began in 2011 when Thein Sein took the helm of a quasi-civilian government, as an example of the positive effects of Washington's engagement.

He will hold discussions with a group of lawmakers at Naypyidaw's sprawling parliament on Thursday but is not expected to raise the thorny issue of constitutional change to allow Suu Kyi to run for the top job.

A debate on the issue began in parliament on Thursday.

Obama's administration has in recent years made a major foreign policy "pivot" towards Asia and - until now - Myanmar's baby-steps towards democracy have been trumpeted as a success for that strategy.

Myanmar saw the removal of most Western sanctions as it released the majority of political prisoners and loosened draconian press censorship, allowing a flurry of investor interest in the country seen as an exciting virgin market.

Alarm over rights

But the country, which was stifled under military rule for almost half a century, has faced increasingly frequent accusations that its ambitious transition is stuttering.

Activists have sounded the alarm over prosecutions of protesters and journalists, while one reporter was shot and killed by the military last month in a volatile border area - a killing referenced by the US president in his Irrawaddy interview.

International concerns have overshadowed what Myanmar's government had hoped would be a celebration of the nation's democratic achievements at Naypyidaw this week as it welcomed its biggest gathering of world leaders since the reforms began.

Thein Sein hosted the heads of the other nine members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc for an annual summit on Wednesday.

ASEAN was then joined by Obama and leaders from Japan, China, India, Australia, China, Russia, South Korea and New Zealand for the East Asia summit on Thursday.

Obama is in the midst of a hectic Asia-Pacific tour that started in Beijing for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, during which he announced a surprise climate deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

He will travel to Australia on Friday for the G20 summit.

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.