US senator has rare visit with Myanmar's Suu Kyi

[August 15, 2009]  YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- U.S. Sen. Jim Webb visited Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday, a rare meeting between a foreign official and the Nobel Peace laureate who was recently sentenced to 18 more months of house arrest, witnesses said.

Official sources said it was also "likely" that the regime would deport the American convicted along with Suu Kyi for violating the terms of her detention and hand him over to Webb.

John Yettaw was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor for swimming secretly to Suu Kyi's house in early May and is being held in Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

On Saturday, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was driven from her residence to a nearby government guest house for a 40-minute meeting with Webb, then reporters saw her taken home by car.

Webb also met with junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe, his first meeting with a senior U.S. official. The meeting was confirmed by official Myanmar sources, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the press.

Webb's visit to Myanmar, the first by a member of the U.S. Congress in more than a decade, has drawn criticism from activists who say it confers legitimacy on a brutal regime, but the Obama administration gave the Virginia Democrat its blessing. Webb is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee.

The junta's approval to meet with Suu Kyi may have been given to mitigate the torrent of international criticism against Myanmar following her trial and Tuesday's verdict. In July, authorities barred U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon from meeting with Suu Kyi during a two-day visit.

Webb arrived in Myanmar's capital of Naypyitaw on Friday. Earlier, he was reportedly on his way to see Yettaw, but that visit was apparently canceled or postponed.

Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention. Her latest sentence came after she and Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, were convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest when he secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.

Webb was scheduled to meet with reporters in Yangon on Sunday.

Webb's visit - particularly the meetings with senior officials and Suu Kyi - was unusual because of the poor state of relations between Myanmar, also known as Burma, and the U.S. Many critics said it was bad timing for outreach - only days after the junta flouted international appeals that Suu Kyi be cleared of the latest charges.

While Washington has traditionally been Myanmar's strongest critic, applying political and economic sanctions against the junta, President Barack Obama's new ambassador for East Asia, Kurt Campbell, recently said the administration is interested in easing its policy of isolation. Webb has suggested that "affirmative engagement" would bring the most change to Myanmar, concerning those who think a hard line is the best approach.

In a letter to Webb, dissident groups warned the junta would use the senator's trip for its own ends.

"We are concerned that the military regime will manipulate and exploit your visit and propagandize that you endorse their treatment on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and over 2,100 political prisoners, their human rights abuses on the people of Burma, and their systematic, widespread and ongoing attack against the ethnic minorities," the letter said. Daw is a term of respect for older women in Myanmar.

Possibly reflecting a similar wariness, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy said the party "has no interest in Jim Webb because he is not known to have any interest in Myanmar affairs." He did not elaborate.

Official media, however, appeared to herald Webb's arrival. The nightly broadcast led with the visit, reporting that the senator met with Prime Minister Gen. Thein Sein on Friday, and returned to the subject several times during the night.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The junta called elections in 1990 but refused to honor the results when Suu Kyi's party won overwhelmingly.

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Associated Press writer Foster Klug contributed to this report from Washington.

[Associated Press]

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