The Lady’ of Burma faces difficult choices
By Ben Bland in Rangoon
The tightly orchestrated press conference featuring Hillary Clinton and Aung San Suu Kyi at the Burmese opposition leader’s lakeside residence on Friday had an unmistakably presidential feel.
After lengthy talks, the two women went for a stroll in the garden before emerging to face the media from the veranda of the house where Ms Suu Kyi was detained by Burma’s military dictators for 15 years until her release last November.
The political theatre was to be expected given that both women were once close to assuming the leadership of their respective countries. But while Mrs Clinton is thought unlikely to seek the presidential nomination again, Ms Suu Kyi is re-entering the rough and tumble of politics after a long, enforced hiatus.
Mrs Clinton’s visit to Burma, the first by a US secretary of state for more than 50 years, is part of a wider US strategy of re-engaging with south-east Asian nations to balance the growing clout of Beijing. But speaking alongside Mrs Clinton on Friday, Ms Suu Kyi suggested Burma should not have to choose between the world’s two great powers. “I was very pleased to read today that the Chinese foreign ministry put out a statement welcoming the engagement of the US in Burma,” she told reporters, adding: “This shows that we have the support of the whole world and [I am] particularly pleased because we hope to maintain good, friendly relations with China, our very close neighbour.”
While Ms Suu Kyi’s return to mainstream politics was welcomed by Mrs Clinton, questions abound over what role the opposition leader, admired by her supporters for her adherence to principle over pragmatism, can play in the new Burma. Last month, her National League for Democracy said it would reregister as a political party to fight the by-elections, in which 48 parliamentary seats will be contested. Ms Suu Kyi is widely expected to win one of them.
The decision, which was criticised by some hardliners within her party, marked a significant shift in position by Ms Suu Kyi, who for more than 20 years refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of a junta that had annulled the 1990 general election, which the NLD won by a landslide. Nyi Nyi Win, an NLD activist and former political prisoner, is among those who worry the government is trying to co-opt Ms Suu Kyi before it has guaranteed genuine freedoms and human rights. “The generals are trying to strengthen their position by shedding their uniforms,” he says. “I’m not pleased but I will follow my leader.”
Ms Suu Kyi’s about-turn has been caused by unexpected moves to open up the country taken in recent months by Thein Sein, the president and a former general who took the helm of a nominally civilian government in March. The government has opened direct talks with Ms Suu Kyi, freed more than 200 political prisoners, eased censorship and vowed to implement further political and economic reforms.
Mr Thein Sein and Ms Suu Kyi have developed an unlikely rapport, according to people who have worked with both. The Oxford-educated democracy campaigner says she believes her former jailer is genuine in his efforts to establish more freedom and encourage development in one of Asia’s poorest nations.
Mrs Clinton said she supported Ms Suu Kyi’s decision to stand for election and she would make “an excellent addition” to Burma’s parliament. But the US secretary of state warned her she would find politics tough, not least because in Burma “the rules are being written as you engage”.
If she does get into parliament, Ms Suu Kyi, her supporters and the government will all face difficult choices as they seek to define her role. Until now she has been highly influential both inside Burma and around the world. But the risk, according to one foreign diplomat, is that she goes from being the international face of Burma’s democracy movement to “just another MP”.
Mr Thein Sein and other senior officials know they need her onside if they are to persuade the US and other western nations to ease the sanctions that have contributed to Burma’s isolation and impoverishment.
In the tea shops and foreign embassies of Rangoon, there has been talk the government may try to offer her a symbolic or advisory role, although most think it unlikely that she would join at this stage. Some critics within her party and beyond believe she is cosying up too quickly and not drawing enough concessions, with hundreds of political prisoners still in jail, freedoms still limited and the economy in the hands of the generals and their cronies.
“For 20 years, the regime viewed her as a liability but now they are trying to turn her to their advantage,” says one local activist. Others argue she is moving too late and that she delayed the reform process through her previous principled stance.
Either way, as she returns to the political fray wrapped in a new cloak of pragmatism, “The Lady”, as she is widely known, is likely to face many more “slings and arrows” – in Mrs Clinton’s words.
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