NLD predicts rise in US-Burma tensions

Friday, 04 June 2010 00:29 Phanida

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – The cancellation of US senator Jim Webb’s visit to Burma may cause increased tension between the Washington and the Burmese military regime, Burmese opposition party, the National League for Democracy, foresees.

The prediction from the main opposition party came after the US Sentate Foreign Relations East Asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee chairman, Jim Webb, announced the postponement of his visit at short notice today.

“The tension will be heightened between US and the regime based on this matter”, NLD central executive committee member Win Tin said.

He added that the new engagement policy adopted by US President Barack Obama was failing.

Webb had planned to meet NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo along with seven party central executive panel members including, Win Tin and Nyan Win, at the residence of the US chargé d’ affaires Larry Dinger in Rangoon on Saturday afternoon.

In his statement today, he said that he was concerned over an alleged attempt by Burma to acquire nuclear weapons from North Korea and that he would not make a further visit to Burma until the ruling junta resolved this issue completely. The nuclear bid would represent a breach of UN Security Council resolutions.

The potential breach would fly in the face of recent comments by Science and Technology Minister U Thaung at a meeting between US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs Dr. Kurt Campbell and State Peace and Development Council (the military junta’s own label for itself) ministers in Naypyidaw last month. U Thaung told the visiting US minister that the junta would “fully” comply with the Security Council resolutions 1718 and 1874 but at the same time, it had a responsibility to safeguard the “sovereignty of State” when the US minister raised the nuclear issue.

After North Korean detonated its first nuclear device in a test on October 9, 2006, the United Nations Security Council imposed economic and financial sanctions against North Korea with Resolution 1718 on October 14.

After Pyongyang’s second test in May last year, the UN passed Resolution 1874 the following month, enabling UN member nations to check and inspect North Korean vessels and aircraft suspected of carrying nuclear weapons. The resolution also bans member countries any arms trading with North Korea.

Webb, who protested in principle against imposing sanctions on Burma, became the first top-level politician to meet Burmese junta chief Senior General Than Shwe on August 15 last year.

Washington suspects the Burmese junta of buying nuclear weapons from North Korea, NLD Liberated Area foreign affairs committee leader Nyo Ohn Myint said.

During 2008, a junta military delegation led by General Thura Shwe Man secretly visited North Korea via China and signed many agreements for military co-operation between the countries, secret files received by Mizzima revealed.

Postponement of the US delegation coincided with the official visit of Premier Wen Jiabao of junta ally China. Burma’s northern neighbour is also one of North Korea’s few allies.

Wen held talks with Burmese junta leader Senior General Than Shwe in Naypyidaw today. During his visit, Chinese officials have signed at least a dozen bilateral agreements with the junta, which included deals to boost access to Burma’s energy resources, such as gas and hydropower, and for Beijing to provide financial assistance to the repressive military dictatorship, a source from Naypyidaw told Mizzima.

It is likely that had Webb chosen to go to Burma anyway, both the senator and the Obama administration would have drawn heavy criticism from Republican politicians and a large number of Democrats opposed to taking a soft line with Burma’s generals and meeting the regime the same week as an official high-level Chinese delegation.

Many members of Burma’s opposition movement remain wary of Webb’s approach to dealing with the Burmese regime and his overall viewpoint on the situation in the country. In his 2008 book A Time to Fight: Reclaiming a Fair and Just America, Webb claimed that the Burmese regime’s September 2007 crackdown against the protesting monks of the “saffron revolution” could have been avoided if there had been more western engagement with the regime.

He wrote: “If Westerners had remained in the country this moment might never have occurred, because it is entirely possible that conditions may have improved rather than deteriorated.”

Apparently Webb was unaware that in 2007 and still today, the largest single source of revenue for the Burmese regime comes from a natural gas project run by France’s Total and the US energy giant Chevron.

Burmese dissidents were furious at Webb’s very public attempts to woo Burma’s generals.

In response to Webb’s meeting last year with junta leader Than Shwe, U Pyinya Zawta, one of the founders of the All Burma Monks’ Alliance that led the saffron revolution wrote a scathing editorial about Webb’s engagement efforts in the Irrawaddy Magazine. According to the former political prisoner, “Webb is now despised by the people of Burma. If he succeeds in achieving a shift in US policy to abandon sanctions, he will have secured his place in history as one of the most important supporters of Than Swe’s military dictatorship.”