Arakan News Agency
When he visited Washington, D.C. two years ago, Burma’s new president was being hailed as an “Asian Gorbachev.” America’s capital rolled out the podiums and cocktail receptions because it appeared a “Burma Spring” was underway — or at least a winter thaw.
Thein Sein was lauded for opening the economy and freeing political prisoners such as Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The hope was that a new normal was at hand in the long-suffering country that military rulers had renamed Myanmar.
But has the former general turned out to be the reformer everyone hoped?
Not yet — and this is the last year of his five-year term.
It should have been a clue when Thein Sein insisted, “I would like to say that Gorbachev and I are not alike, I tell you that.”
Thein Sein’s record is inconsistent at best:
• He allowed a human rights movie festival in Rangoon — but Rohingya Muslims were herded into detention camps.
• He criticized corruption — but contracts still go to cronies of generals and ministers.
• He said all political prisoners would be released by the end of 2013 — but more have been arrested.
• He finally allowed the Red Cross access to prisons — but humanitarian aid for thousands trapped in conflict zones has been blocked.
• He promised to allow the U.N. Human Rights Commission to open an office — but hasn’t.
• He spoke out against religious hatred — then supported the ultra-nationalist monk Wirathu, who has inflamed prejudice against Muslims.
The opaque President remains something of a paradox. His spindly, bespectacled appearance has contributed to the impression that he is a mild-mannered apparatchik, still beholden to the shadows of the old regime. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted in her memoir that the stoop-shouldered leader “looked more than an accountant than a general.”
Thein Sein is considered the mastermind behind current peace talks — he initiated them and has nudged them as far as they have come. The military is derailing them, but Thein Sein might regain status by getting them back on track.
The United States could help by pressing him harder to uphold the promises he made two years ago in exchange for economic favors – before more time and an election slide by.
source : The huffington Post / Rena Pederson
