US officials to travel to Myanmar for talks

(AP) WASHINGTON - The Obama administration said Wednesday that U.S. officials plan to travel to Myanmar in the next few weeks to talk with representatives from the military-run government, ethnic minority groups and the democratic opposition.

The trip is part of a new U.S. policy that reverses the Bush administration’s shunning of Myanmar in favor of direct high-level talks with a country that has been ruled by the military since 1962.

Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for East Asia, told lawmakers at a congressional hearing that the United States is pleased that Myanmar has allowed detained democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with a government minister and with foreign diplomats.

But, Campbell said, Suu Kyi should also be permitted to see members of her own political party, and the government must continue and expand talks with the Nobel Peace Laureate who has been in detention for 14 of the past 20 years.

The United States, he said, wants to see "concrete results" from Myanmar on the release of Suu Kyi and thousands of other political prisoners, on fighting with ethnic minorities and on real dialogue between the government and the opposition.

Campbell said he would be traveling to Myanmar to continue talks he began in September in New York with senior Myanmar officials, the first such high-level contact in nearly a decade. He cautioned that "it will take more than a single conversation to resolve our differences."

Tough U.S. sanctions will remain until talks with Myanmar’s generals result in change. If Myanmar doesn’t address U.S. worries, he said, "we will reserve the option of tightening sanctions on the regime and its supporters as appropriate."

Campbell told lawmakers that improved U.S.-Myanmar cooperation on fighting drug smuggling, protecting the environment and recovering the remains of Americans killed in World War II could help improve ties.

Supporters of engagement argue that isolating the country has limited U.S. influence among the citizens and allowed China to establish a strong business and diplomatic foothold.

Critics say high-level U.S. attention validates a violent junta that has repeatedly killed and abused its people for speaking out in opposition.

Campbell said that one reason for engaging Myanmar is to learn more about the intentions of the leaders of a country the United States knows even less about than North Korea.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said the United States knows all it needs to know about Myanmar’s brutal treatment of its people. He said it is immoral for the United States to engage with Myanmar.

The United States has traditionally relied heavily on sanctions meant to force Myanmar’s generals to respect human rights and release imprisoned political activists. Those sanctions are widely supported among both senior Democratic and Republican U.S. lawmakers.

Many in the U.S. Congress are also devoted to the cause of Suu Kyi, who was sentenced in August to an additional 18 months of house arrest for briefly sheltering an uninvited American at her home earlier this year.

Her detention means she cannot participate in elections scheduled for next year, the first in Myanmar in two decades. Her party swept the last elections in 1990, but the results were never honored by the military.