24 September 2009

United States Will Directly Engage Burma, but Keep Sanctions

Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton says the United States will directly engage the Burmese junta while maintaining sanctions.

By Stephen Kaufman
Staff Writer

Washington — Ahead of announcing the results of its policy review on Burma, the Obama administration says it will be directly engaging the country’s military regime in addition to continuing U.S. sanctions on Burmese leaders and their associates as a means of encouraging democratic and human rights reforms.

“Engagement versus sanctions is a false choice, in our opinion. So going forward, we will be employing both of those tools,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters in New York on September 23.

Clinton said the policy review, which began in February in an effort to find a more effective way to promote freedom in Burma, is almost complete, but the basic U.S. policy objectives toward Burma remain the same.

“We want credible, democratic reform; a government that responds to the needs of the Burmese people; immediate, unconditional release of political prisoners, including [pro-democracy leader and Nobel Prize laureate] Aung San Suu Kyi; serious dialogue with the opposition and minority ethnic groups,” Clinton said.

Although targeted sanctions remain an important part of U.S. policy, “by themselves, they have not produced the results that had been hoped for on behalf of the people of Burma,” she said.

Therefore, to help achieve democratic reform in Burma, the United States will also “be engaging directly with Burmese authorities,” she said. “This is a policy that has broad consensus across our government, and there will be more to report as we go forward.”

Following the secretary’s remarks, a senior State Department official speaking on background told reporters that the Obama administration is “going into this with eyes wide open” and is not expecting immediate results.

“The military’s been in power since 1962. We have been working hard at this for many, many years. It’s not an easy situation to resolve, and it’s unlikely that there’s going to be dramatic change soon. But we think that going forward with a more nuanced approach that focuses on trying to achieve results and that’s based on pragmatism, it increases the chances of success over time,” the official said.

For the first time in many years, the United States has heard “fairly clearly” from Burma’s military rulers that they have “an interest in engaging with us and improving relations with us,” the official said. “And so it seems to us useful to see if we can use that interest to advance our goals.” The official added that the engagement “will be at a higher level … than it has been.”

The Obama administration expects that the Burmese will be designating an interlocutor for the United States, and “we will certainly have someone who would be available to talk,” the official said, adding that under U.S. law, a special envoy to Burma will have to be officially named before he or she can begin discussions with the Burmese.

When the Obama administration began its policy review, Clinton had recognized that neither the existing sanctions-based policy nor efforts to engage the military regime by Burma’s neighbors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had worked, the official said. “It was appropriate to look at some new ideas and see if we could come up with a better way.”

The review, whose conclusions will be announced “in the next day or two,” according to the official, was slowed by the arrest and new trial of Burmese democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi over the summer. (See “Obama, Clinton Condemn Sentencing of Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi.”)

“It seemed to us we wanted to await the outcome of that before coming to our conclusions. And we’re now at that point of coming to the conclusions,” the official said.

In the meantime, targeted sanctions against Burma’s military rulers and their associates will remain as part of the effort to encourage greater democratization and respect for human rights, the official said. “If Burma made progress toward addressing our concerns on the core political issues, certainly I think we would look at sanctions. But at this point, they haven’t made any such progress.”

Any such adjustments going forward “would be based on tangible progress by Burma,” the official said.

What foreign affairs decisions should President Obama consider? Comment on America.gov’s blog Obama Today.