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Bush off to Beijing with a Myanmar mission
Tajikistan News.Net
Thursday 7th August, 2008 (IANS)
US President George W. Bush Thursday chided China for its human rights record and called on the communist country to help pressure Myanmar's military leaders before departing Bangkok Thursday for Beijing.
Bush, on a two-day visit in Thailand, lunched with Myanmar dissidents before departing for the Chinese capital, where he is to attend Friday's opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
'He is going to talk with China about Burma (former name of Myanmar) even though he seems to be worried that China's interests are different from the US' interest on Burma,' said Win Min, one of nine Thailand-based Myanmar dissidents who lunched with Bush Thursday in Bangkok.
China is deemed the closest political ally of Myanmar, which was once called Burma, and one of the few world powers with any influence over the country's ruling junta.
The international community has long been calling on Myanmar's military regime to implement democratic reforms and free political prisoners, including opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been under house arrest for the past five years.
Bush and his wife, Laura, have championed the cause of Myanmar dissidents, helping to keep the country's struggle for democracy in the international limelight.
'We seek an end to tyranny in Burma,' President Bush said in a major policy speech he delivered Thursday in Bangkok.
'America reiterates our call on Burma's military junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, and we will continue working until the people of Burma have the freedom they deserve.'
Bush, who said his administration's policy of engagement with China had helped defuse potential security threats over such issues as the North Korean nuclear programme and tensions between China and Taiwan, expressed optimism about China's capacity for political change in the wake of its recent economic takeoff.
'Young people who grow up with the freedom to trade goods will ultimately demand the freedom to trade ideas, especially on an unrestricted internet,' Bush said in his last major policy speech on US-Asian relations.
'Change in China will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and traditions. Yet change will arrive.'
Bush, whose presidency ends in January, claimed the United States' diplomatic engagement with Asia over the past seven years under his administration had helped bring in a period of economic prosperity and stability in Asia.
Its active, constructive engagement had also placed the United States in a good position to make criticisms where necessary, Bush said.
'America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists,' Bush said in addressing an audience of about 500 at the Queen Sirikit Convention Centre.
The Bushes used their Thailand visit to highlight the political situation in Myanmar, which has been under military dictatorships since 1962.
Laura Bush visited a refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border for Karens, one of several ethnic groups fighting Myanmar's junta, and a clinic run by a Karen doctor, Cynthia Maung.
President Bush stopped in Thailand in part to mark the two countries' 175th year of diplomatic relations, making Thailand the oldest US ally in the region. Prior to Thailand, he visited South Korea on his week long, three-nation Asia trip.  Email this story to a friend
Comments on this story
Anonymous
08-08-08, 02:16 AM |
Bush off to Beijing with a Myanmar mission
Thanks to U.S President Mr. Bush and Laura for their cares and concerns to the burmese people who suffer under this brutal military regime for more than four decades. This regime kills many innocent people including buddhist monks. It is too hard to count the number of people they killed in the demostrations. In every peaceful demonstration they give order to kill the people and carry all the bodies on the trucks and at the back of the trucks they use trucks for fire stations to wash away the bloody road. All the bodies they send to the cemetry and cremated also alive and wounded bodies they don’t care and respect to the human life.
Now many countries know about Burma and the real pictures of this military regime and their ways to suppress the own people.
One good news is that bumese refugees and the ethnic karen people had a chance to express their feelings to the President of United States Mr. Bush and Laura personally.
This is a lot to the people who stay outside or inside of the country.
We have to see the remaining part on the screen.
Thanks again Mr. Bush and Laura and their daughter.
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waltky
10-01-08, 06:49 AM |
Investigatin' Myanmar junta for war crimes...
:cool:
Rights group to probe Burma war crimes
October 01, 2008 - AN independent US group is to carry out unprecedented studies to determine whether Burma’s military rulers, accused of rampant human rights abuses, have committed international crimes.
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The Centre for Constitutional Democracy at Indiana University’s school of law said it would launch the research based on anecdotal human rights evidence of “severe mistreatment” of marginalised ethnic groups by the military junta. “At this stage of the project, I can’t honestly say that there are international crimes," the centre’s executive director, David Williams, told AFP by telephone. “What I can say is there may be, and part of our goal would be to gather the evidence and try to come out with some objective conclusions about whether there are or not," he said.
The centre’s goal, he said, was to make focused research “in areas where perhaps it is most likely that international crimes were committed”. Only the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) can determine whether international crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, have been committed by any individual or group. So far, Professor Williams said, there has been no institutional focus on possible international crimes committed by Burma’s junta, which imposed a bloody crackdown of pro-democracy protests in September last year that was condemned worldwide. The crackdown - according to United Nations figures - left 31 people dead and 74 others missing, and resulted in thousands of arrests.
The military rulers had also come under international fire and were called “heartless” by some humanitarian groups for initially not allowing foreign aid into the country when a cyclone left 138,000 people dead or missing in May. Burma also houses more than 2100 political prisoners, including democracy icon and Nobel peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent more than 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest. Prof Williams said that although the ICC had not initiated any study on the military junta’s record so far, “ours might be a good place for them to get started”. “It might help the various investigators know where to go and what allegations to examine and so forth," he said.
More [url:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24430208-23109,00.html[/url]
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