Isolation Failed, U.S. Tries To Engage Myanmar

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

The United States pushed for years to isolate Myanmar. Now, the Obama administration is starting to engage it. Two American officials arrived today in Myanmar, also known as Burma. They're the highest ranking American diplomats to visit the country since 1995. They will meet the country's military rulers. They will also hold separate talks with the detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. NPR's Southeast Asia correspondent Michael Sullivan reports.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN: No one is expecting any miracles from Assistant Secretary of State Kirk Campbell's visit. The U.S. is calling the trip a fact finding mission.

Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention after being convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing American swimmer John Yettaw to stay at her lakeside home, uninvited, in May. And an estimated 2,000 political prisoners remain in Myanmar's jails, including dozens detained in the past week. Still, many Myanmar watchers are encouraged by what appears to be a new found willingness by both sides to engage.

Mr. AUNG NAING OO (Burmese exile): The Burmese military clearly wants to be friendly with the Americans, and Americans clearly want to get back into the region. So I think it may take time, but I think both countries are in the right direction.

SULLIVAN: That's Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese exile and analyst, now living in Thailand. He says Senator Jim Webb's visit in August, Assistant Secretary of State Campbell's meeting with Myanmar's prime minister at the United Nations in September, and the regime's decision to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with Western diplomats last month are all good signs.

Mr. OO: The confidence building missions have been successful. I mean, the U.S. government has stopped attacking the Burmese military outright. And the Burmese military has stopped attacking the Americans. And the new initiative is something, you know, we have seen between Vietnam and the U.S. in the ?90s. So I think it will take time, but I think, again, they both are going on the right direction.

SULLIVAN: Aung Zaw, another exile who edits the Irrawaddy magazine, agrees, but urges caution and patience.

Mr. AUNG ZAW (Editor, Irrawaddy magazine): The ultimate goal is to see a meaningful and permanent change taking place in Burma. We don't know what the U.S. is going to achieve, but it will be a very slow and long and painful process.

SULLIVAN: The U.S. still wants Myanmar's military rulers to release its political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and allow her National League for Democracy the political space to participate in next year's scheduled election, part of what Myanmar's military rulers call their roadmap to democracy.

Myanmar's military rulers still want the U.S. and the West to ease sanctions and allow more investment - to make Myanmar less dependent on neighboring China. Neither side is likely to get everything it wants, but longtime Myanmar watcher Professor David Steinberg, of Georgetown University, says you have to start somewhere.

Professor DAVID STEINBERG (Georgetown University): Oh, these are issues that they're going to have to work out. So the time frame would be over a year, let's say, approximately. But if things can go on there where they begin to do some changes in the process, then maybe something can happen.

SULLIVAN: Maybe the regime frees some dissidents but not all, Steinberg says, or eases restrictions on foreign aid groups working in the country. Maybe the U.S., he says, finally names an ambassador to Myanmar to show it's serious, too.

In the short term, Myanmar's leaders could allow Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with her party's leadership to discuss the NLD's role, if any, in next year's scheduled election. If such a meeting does take place, it will be seen by some as another tentative step forward.

Assistant Secretary of State Campbell, meanwhile, is scheduled to meet with Aung San Suu Kyi tomorrow.

Michael Sullivan, NPR News, Bangkok.

(Soundbite of music)

INSKEEP: This is NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.