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US senator meets Myanmar's junta chief, Aung San Suu Kyi
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 15 - 08 - 2009


US Senator Jim Webb, on a mission to "re-engage"
Washington in South-East Asia, met Myanmar's military supremo as well
as detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Saturday, government
officials said, according to dpa.
Webb also negotiated the release of US national John William
Yettaw, 54, who was sentenced Tuesday with Suu Kyi to seven years in
prison with hard labour, US media later said.
Yettaw had been sentenced for swimming to the house-cum-prison of
Suu Kyi on May 3 on a mission to warn her of an assassination attempt
he had envisioned.
Webb was quoted by US media as expressing thanks to the Myanmar
military government for acceding to the request for Yettaw's release.
The junta said the uninvited guest had violated the terms of a
previous house detention of Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20
years under detention.
Webb, a Democrat from Virginia who is chairman of the US Senate's
East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, arrived in Myanmar's
military capital, Naypyitaw, Friday when he held talks with Prime
Minister Than Sein and government-backed civil organizations.
On Saturday, Webb met with junta chief Senior General Than Shwe,
making him the first US politician to have a personal chat with the
military supremo since he assumed power in 1992.
After meeting Than Shwe, Webb flew on to Yangon where he met with
Nobel peace prize laureate Suu Kyi at a government guest house,
government sources said.
Suu Kyi was taken under army guard from her house-cum-prison for
the brief meeting.
The nature of Webb's talks with Than Shwe and Suu Kyi were not
disclosed, but Webb was expected to give a press conference in Yangon
Sunday prior to his departure for Bangkok.
Webb is a proponent of change in US foreign policy toward Myanmar,
a pariah state among Western democracies that has been condemned for
its poor human rights record and has been subject to economic
sanctions for decades.
The senator also met with representatives of Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy opposition party Saturday morning.
Webb's trip to Myanmar - part of a five-nation tour of South-East
Asia that is also to include stopovers in Thailand, Cambodia and
Vietnam - comes days after Than Shwe placed pro-democracy icon Suu
Kyi under house arrest for the next 18 months, commuting a court
sentence of three years in prison.
"It is vitally important that the United States re-engage with
South-East Asia at all levels," Webb wrote on his website after a
visit to Laos, whose communist leadership sided with the Vietnamese
communists against the US military in the 1960s and '70s.
Myanmar pro-democracy groups have questioned the timing of Webb's
visit and cautioned him not to become a tool of the ruling regime.
"We are concerned that the military regime will manipulate and
exploit your visit and propagandize that you endorse the trial of Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi and the imprisonment of over 2,100 political
prisoners," said a joint statement sent to the US embassy in Yangon
by the All Burma Monks Alliance, 88 Generation Students and All Burma
Federation of Student Unions.


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