Word: rangoons
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...first high-level team of U.S. diplomats to visit Burma in 14 years met with detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Wednesday in what some hope may signal the first steps toward breaking the political deadlock that has gripped Burma for more than 20 years. But Burma analysts say any positive developments from the mission will depend on a man the Americans did not meet: Burma's reclusive military leader, General Than Shwe...
...Instead, Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell and his deputy, Scot Marciel, met with Prime Minister Thein Sein, who wields little actual political power, in the inland capital of Naypyidaw on the second day of their two day visit. They later flew to Rangoon to confer with 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who was allowed to travel from the home where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years under arrest to a downtown hotel where the diplomats were staying. (See pictures of Burma's slowly shifting landscape...
...since 1962, and since the bloody suppression of a democracy uprising in 1988, the U.S. has incrementally reduced contacts with the regime and increased sanctions against it for its record of violating human rights and quashing democracy. Larry Dinger, the chargé d'affaires at the U.S. embassy in Rangoon, was quoted in the state-run Myanmar Times this week saying Washington wanted to make progress on "important issues" but would maintain sanctions "until concrete progress is made." The State Department has referred to the trip as a "fact-finding mission...
...Certainly, the signs from the heavens haven't been auspicious of late. In May, the Danoke pagoda near Rangoon collapsed, killing three. Burmese with an eye for otherworldly coincidences noted that a pagoda ceremony earlier this year was officiated by the wife of Than Shwe, the junta's leader. Then, in June, an elevator inside a 32-story Buddha in Sagaing division failed, injuring several passengers. "Burmese people take omens very seriously," says a newspaper editor in Rangoon. "These coincidences aren't just coincidences. I can assure you that the generals are very worried...
...Meanwhile, and much more convincingly, Aung San Suu Kyi was declaring her innocence before a court in Rangoon - alas, in vain. On Aug. 11, the iconic and much admired democracy leader was found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest, a verdict that everyone, including Suu Kyi herself, had predicted. Also predictable was the apparent imperviousness of the ruling Burmese junta to the global outrage it generated by putting her under house arrest for another 18 months just as her last spell in detention was expiring. U.S. President Barack Obama called it "unjust." British Prime Minister Gordon Brown...