Word: junta
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...years, the U.S. response to the junta's ironfisted rule has been an arsenal of economic sanctions. But Webb's confab with junta head General Than Shwe, though not an official visit, may signal a shift in U.S. policy. Earlier this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that U.S. sanctions have done nothing to moderate the junta's behavior, in part because nations like China and India have poured investment into Burma. After his mission, Webb told reporters, "Isolation is only preventing [Burma] from developing economically and politically...
...democracy advocate, who has been locked up for 14 of the past 20 years, was punished in a bizarre case in which an American swam uninvited to her lakeside villa. The verdict virtually guarantees that Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy overwhelmingly won the 1990 elections that the junta ignored, will have to sit out the nationwide polls that the regime has promised for next year...
Some exiled Burmese dissidents have criticized Webb for lending legitimacy to the generals. But Webb did, at least, extract one concession from the junta. When the Senator's plane left Burma on Aug. 16, it carried an extra occupant: John Yettaw, the American sentenced to seven years' imprisonment with hard labor for his midnight swim to Suu Kyi's home. His saga--that of a middle-aged Mormon from Missouri who used homemade flippers to visit the world's most famous political prisoner--is stranger than any fiction, even that of Senator Jim Webb...
...free. Another 18 months of house arrest is enough time to prevent her from meddling in a 2010 election that the military hopes will legitimize its grip on power; it's also enough time to dream up more excuses to detain her, as the junta has done for nearly 14 of the past 20 years. A British diplomat who attended the trial described her demeanor in court as "calm, dignified [and] upright, exuding quiet authority but no hint of bitterness towards the prosecution." She retreats into isolation once again, leaving one question unanswered. If Than Shwe...
...Burma The Lady Remains a Captive It could have been worse. Burmese opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will spend 18 more months under house arrest as a prisoner of the country's military junta for violating the terms of an earlier sentence after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May. The good news: the latest sentence, by military decree, is shorter than the maximum of five years in prison. Suu Kyi will be confined long enough to ensure that she is not a player in Burma's 2010 elections, which are expected...