Myanmar hopes that new US President Barack Obama will change Washington’s tough policy towards its military regime and end the “misunderstandings” of the past, a senior official said yesterday.
The Myanmar government and state media have made no official comment on Obama’s inauguration, but the official said on condition of anonymity that the country was looking to the US leader to show his “good intentions.”
Former US president George W. Bush’s administration strengthened decade-old sanctions against Myanmar while his wife Laura was an outspoken critic of the country’s ruling junta.
“Our two countries’ relations have had some misunderstandings in the past with the Bush administration. Mr Obama needs to study our country’s real situation so that he can change policy,” the Myanmar official said.
“There have been many mistakes in the past [in relations between the countries]. We have had misunderstandings. But now we are expecting good intentions,” he said.
The Myanmar official accused Bush of making “one-sided” decisions.
The Bush administration “made decisions one-sidedly without knowing the real situation on the ground. We hope that US foreign policy will change for the world,” he said.
State-owned daily newspapers carried no comment on the swearing-in of Obama and there were only a few reports in the papers’ foreign news sections.
But people in Myanmar’s biggest city, Yangon, watched the inauguration ceremony on satellite TV overnight.
“I have never seen anything like this ceremony in my life,” Aye Aye, 28, a university student said after staying up until late to see the event.
“There were so many people and it was very surprising and also interesting. I do not understand politics, I just watched because of my interest in the inauguration of the new president,” she said.
Myanmar’s top leader, Senior General Than Shwe, sent a formal diplomatic note of congratulation to Obama in November after he was elected.
Myanmar’s opposition pro-party has also cautiously welcomed the election of Obama, but said time would tell if he could help open up the military-run country.
Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962 and is under economic sanctions from the US and Europe over rights abuses and the detention of pro-democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
HOLLYWOOD IN TURMOIL: Mandy Moore, Paris Hilton and Cary Elwes lost properties to the flames, while awards events planned for this week have been delayed Fires burning in and around Los Angeles have claimed the homes of numerous celebrities, including Billy Crystal, Mandy Moore and Paris Hilton, and led to sweeping disruptions of entertainment events, while at least five people have died. Three awards ceremonies planned for this weekend have been postponed. Next week’s Oscar nominations have been delayed, while tens of thousands of city residents had been displaced and were awaiting word on whether their homes survived the flames — some of them the city’s most famous denizens. More than 1,900 structures had been destroyed and the number was expected to increase. More than 130,000 people
A group of Uyghur men who were detained in Thailand more than one decade ago said that the Thai government is preparing to deport them to China, alarming activists and family members who say the men are at risk of abuse and torture if they are sent back. Forty-three Uyghur men held in Bangkok made a public appeal to halt what they called an imminent threat of deportation. “We could be imprisoned and we might even lose our lives,” the letter said. “We urgently appeal to all international organizations and countries concerned with human rights to intervene immediately to save us from
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
RSS