Burmese President Thein Sein, the first leader of Myanmar to visit Britain in more than 25 years, was to hold talks yesterday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is under pressure to confront him on human rights.
Thein Sein was due to talk trade, aid and democracy with Cameron and his ministers during a two-day visit at a time when Myanmar is opening up its oil, gas and telecommunication sectors to foreign investors, with further liberalization likely.
Sein, a former military commander, is trying to get the West to help Myanmar’s economy recover from decades of military dictatorship, Soviet-style planning and international sanctions.
Western leaders have praised him for ending the house arrest of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and democracy icon, releasing some political prisoners and allowing the opposition to contest an election.
GRIP
However, they want him to further loosen the military’s grip on the mineral-rich state before a 2015 presidential election which the UK-educated Aung San Suu Kyi hopes to contest. The opposition leader, a Nobel laureate, visited Britain last year.
Thein Sein is also under pressure to act to protect Myanmar’s small Muslim minority from inter-ethnic violence.
“Prime Minister Cameron should not miss an important opportunity to press Burma’s president on justice for crimes against humanity committed against the country’s Muslims, the release of remaining political prisoners, or an end to repressive laws,” New York-based Human Rights Watch said.
VIOLENCE
At least 237 people have been killed in Myanmar in religious violence over the past year and about 150,000 people have been displaced. Most of the victims were Muslim and the deadliest incidents happened in Rakhine State, where about 800,000 Rohingya Muslims live, according to the UN.
Avaaz, a global campaign group, was to hold a demonstration outside the British parliament yesterday and said that almost 1 million people have signed a petition calling for an end to inter-ethnic violence in Myanmar.
It said the bloodshed risked escalating to become the next Rwanda, referring to the bloody inter-ethnic violence there in 1994 in which hundreds of thousands were killed.
“We want to recognize the remarkable reforms of the last 18 months, but also to raise at the highest levels our ongoing concerns, particularly about inter-communal and anti-Muslim violence,” a British Foreign Office spokesman said.
Britain will press Thein Sein to improve humanitarian access, to address accountability for crimes, and to end discrimination against the Muslim Rohingya community, he added.
Cameron visited Myanmar last year and Thein Sein, who remains close to the Burmese military, became the first leader of his country since 1966 to visit the White House earlier this year.
His British trip is thought to be the first since Burmese general Ne Win, who ruled the country for 26 years, visited in 1986.
Thein Sein is expected to visit France afterward.
Additional reporting by staff writer
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS