A historic day: Aung San Suu Kyi meets Hillary Clinton in Yangon

Local and international journalists queue up outside 54 University Avenue, the family residence of Aung San Suu Kyi, where she was detained under house arrest by the military junta for 15 years until her release last November We were told to arrive at least 3 hours before Suu Kyi and Hillary Clinton graced us with their presence for security reasons.

A US Secret Service officer keeps watch while the "uncles" from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, including 82-year-old U Win Tin, file into her house ahead of the meeting with Clinton.

Western journalists had a good opportunity to top up their tan while waiting for the "two ladies" to appear. The set-up, by Inya lake in the garden of Suu Kyi's house, looks like it would make a good wedding venue if she is ever short of cash.

This member of the traveling Washington press corps appears to be struggling to come to terms with his comically-oversized Burmese mobile phone, the sort of brick-like communication device last seen in the West about 20 years ago. In a country with very poor mobile phone networks, the large aerial helps but not enough to assuage this poor chap's frustrations.

Here come the brides...

They make a great couple, complete with matching hand gestures.

Photographers scramble to get a shot of "the hug".

Surprisingly, for two women with steely reputations, the warmth between them looked genuine.

Some of Burma's private weekly newspapers went big on the Clinton/Suu Kyi meeting. A veteran Burmese journalist told me that sticking The Lady's photo on their front page always boosts sales. The government still does not allow any privately-owned newspapers to publish on a daily basis but has indicated that that may change next year.

All hail the Myanmar development miracle

Although it is the poorest country in Southeast Asia and is often described as one of the most miserable places on earth, Myanmar appears to have made good progress in improving the quality of life for its people, according to the latest UN Human Development Report.

An analysis of the UN stats by The Economist (disclosure: I sometimes contribute to it) shows that the quality of life in Myanmar (measured in terms of health, education and wealth) has improved at a faster rate since 1990 than in other nations such as Indonesia, South Korea, Brazil, Russia and South Africa.

Myanmar also fares better than you might expect in the UN's overall league table of human development, coming in at 138, ahead of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya and Ghana (download PDF of full report here).

It is often said by Burma watchers that, unlike almost any other government in the world, the junta have zero interest in improving the quality of life of their own people (see this editorial, for example, by Alison Vicary and Sean Turnell on why the West should retain sanctions).

So what's going on then? Is the UN data merely a statistical outlier?

Firstly, Myanmar has advanced from a pretty low base in 1990 so the improvement needs to be put in that context. Also, there may be question marks over the reliability of the Myanmar data.

Regardless, it's an interesting anomaly. Anyone care to proffer any alternative theories?

Hat-tip to New Mandala for the sanctions piece. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Tianyake.

Why can't Than Shwe open a bank account in Singapore?

Is it just me or does all the hoo-hah over the Burmese junta allegedly "stashing" millions of gas dollars in Singapore bank accounts rather miss the point?

Unlike the US, EU and Australia, Singapore (like other Southeast Asian nations) has a full and active economic and diplomatic relationship with Myanmar.

Singapore's banking regulator may insist that the city-state is not a safehaven for hot money.

But that's largely irrelevant to the Burma cash question because the Singapore government views the junta as a legitimate regime.

Therefore any cash accrued by the generals is, by definition, not considered hot money in Singapore.

So why can't Than Shwe or his fellow Burmese generals just open a bank account with DBS or some private bank and deposit their money there like any other secretive millionaire, with no questions asked?

Photo by deepchi1, courtesy of a creative commons licence.

ASEAN to ask junta to let Suu Kyi take part in elections?

ASEAN's much-hyped letter to the Myanmar junta may call on the generals to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to take part in next year's elections, according to diplomatic sources.

The wording of the letter, which marks a departure from ASEAN's usual policy of non-interference in domestic matters, has yet to be finalised. But it is likely to call on the junta to give clemency to Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 18 months house arrest for allowing American oddball John Yettaw to stay at her house without permission.

However, the letter, which is being pushed by Thai foreign minister Kasit Piromya and backed by Singaporean foreign minister George Yeo, is not likely to call for the release of all political prisoners, diplomatic sources said.

Instead, ASEAN is more likely to take a softer line, asking the junta merely to respect the judicial process and urging national reconciliation between the ruling generals and opposition politicians.

The perils of the cause celeb or why Vivienne Westwood shouldn't speak about Burma

I'm back in the UK for a few weeks and last night attended the launch of the Burma VJ film, which was being screened simultaneously in 40 cinemas across the UK.

The well-meaning Co-op, which was sponsoring the screening, had roped in some celebs to talk about the film before and after, as well as organising a Q&A with the director and main protagonist by satellite link.

Unfortunately, the first to speak was fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, known more for her hideous clothes than her knowledge of Burmese politics.

The crass nature of her opening gambit took even cynics like myself by surprise.
"I don't know anything about Burma," she explained before rambling on for five minutes about the perils of torture and why monks are great because they sing and chant rather than digging things out of the ground.

It was embarrassing in the extreme. The only upside was that it made Richard Gere's closing address, when he spoke of his "Tibetan brothers and sisters", seem a lot less cringeworthy than it otherwise would have been.

Excellent film though about how technology can empower brave people to take incredible risks in the hope of improving the lives of their fellow citizens. I'd urge you to go and see it.

Is it time for the West to open up to Burma?

Years of international condemnation, economic sanctions and diplomatic machinations have done nothing to dilute the Burmese military's grip on power.

So is it time for Britain, the US, Australia and the EU to follow the rather more pragmatic lead of Russia, China, India and Singapore and deal with Burma as if it were any other country, albeit with a government that you don't much admire?

In a very interesting article, Nicholas Farrelly, an Australian academic and author of the New Mandala blog, argues that it is indeed time for the international community to face up to the reality of entrenched military government in Burma.

Given how strong the position of the Tatmadaw (armed forces) in Burma, there seems to be little point in continuing to pursue the illusory aim of regime change.

Rather, we need to come to terms with how the generals actually run the country. Once you have accepted that getting rid of the junta is not a particularly practicable foreign policy goal, the next logical step seems to be greater engagement with Burma.

The old narrative that pitted evil crazy-eyed generals against saint-like Aung San Suu Kyi and her army of democratic martyrs - beloved by journalists and celebrities without a cause in the West - needs to be thrown out once and for all.

As Mary P. Callahan explained in her seminal work on the subject, Burma is not like some African or Latin American Banana Republic where greedy, power-hungry generals seize control in a coup designed to help them line their pockets. The strength of the military government is the result of the way Burma was forged as a nation, through a succession of internal and external wars.

The West needs to accept the junta and deal with Burma as with any other country run by an objectionable government, such as Belarus or Fiji.

Downer EDI and Burma: credit where it's not due

I was interested to read that Janelle Saffin, an Australian Labor MP, had commended Downer EDI, the Australian engineering group, in a recent parliamentary debate for "voluntarily withdrawing their operations in Burma this year".

That's funny. I thought Downer EDI knew nothing about their Burma operations until a certain journalist contacted them and started asking awkward questions.

It was only then that they decided that helping the generals build their new airport at Naypyidaw didn't tally with their "zero-harm" policy.

Not exactly what most people would call commendable action.

Myanmar boys on tour

In the West, Myanmar is often depicted as a hermit state, isolated from the rest of the world. That may be an accurate view in the US, the EU and Australia, where there are strict sanctions in force, but it is not the case in Asia, as this photograph shows.

This is the Myanmar boys football team doing some sightseeing in Singapore after being knocked out of the Asian Youth Games following a 5-1 thrashing by South Korea on Monday.

They seemed pretty relaxed until I got my camera out and started snapping, at which point a few of them turned away, reluctant to have their photo taken.

They were at City Hall MRT station, which is very close to Peninsula Plaza, the shopping centre of choice for Singapore's sizable Burmese community. There are some great Burmese food places there such as Inle, which most definitely gets the thumbs up from my Burmese friends.

Hopefully the lads were more successful at picking up souvenirs then they were on the football pitch.