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11/15/2012 @ 9:33AM |181 views
Myanmar: No Ethnics; No Nation
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/11/15/myanmar-no-ethics-no-nation/
A supporter of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi holds a bouquet of flowers as supporters of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi gather inside the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters on November 13, 2010 in Yangon, Burma. Aung San Suu Kyi, now aged 65, had been held under house arrest for the majority of the past 15 years but has now finally been released by the country's military leaders. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)
By Stanley Weiss & Tim Heinemann
President Obama’s upcoming Saturday trip to Myanmar, the nation previously known as Burma, is intended to encourage the continuing democratic transition of what was once pariah state. But the way it is now structured may guarantee a lost opportunity instead.
For more than sixty years, resource-rich Myanmar stagnated under violent, repressive and corrupt generals, even as its neighbors embraced free markets and prospered. Then in 2010, the country began to change. Nobel prize winner and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. A new, more open constitution was adopted. The first elections in two decades were held. Follow-on by-elections earlier this year resulted in the main opposition party winning 43 of the 44 legislative seats they contested.
President Obama clearly hopes that this first-ever visit by an American president will give reform further momentum, as well as highlight what the administration believes is a key success in its larger “strategic pivot” to Asia. But while Suu Kyi has endorsed the visit, there are many who worry it is premature.
(Continued at the above link)
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