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<\/a>An ethnic Rakhine man with homemade weapons walks near houses that were set aflame during fighting between Buddhist Rakhine and Muslim Rohingya communities in Sittwe, Burma, on June 10 [2013]. (Reuters)<\/p><\/div>\u201cThe United States, I think, has played a really important role in this period in standing up against atrocities and for democracy and human rights\u201d in Burma.<\/i><\/p>\n
\u2013Samantha Power, U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, Nov. 20, 2013<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cToday, more than 1,000 political prisoners have been released, and we\u2019re helping Burma build a credible electoral infrastructure ahead of its 2015 national elections.\u00a0 We\u2019re supporting a process of constitutional reform and national reconciliation.\u00a0 As Burma moves toward greater openness and change, we are easing sanctions, while encouraging responsible investment and robust support for the people and civil society activists who suffered so long under the iron fist of dictatorship.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n
\u2013National Security Adviser Susan Rice, speech at Georgetown University, Nov. 20, 2013<\/b><\/p>\n
The Obama administration has often pointed to the recent political reforms in Burma, also known as Myanmar, as one of its foreign-policy success stories. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, completed her lengthy term of house arrest and was elected a member of parliament as a brutal military dictatorship gave way to a quasi-military, semi-authoritarian process dominated by former regime officials.<\/p>\n
President Obama rewarded the government of President Thein Shein with a high-profile presidential visit to Burma in 2012, during which Thein Sein made 11 commitments to deepen democracy and protect human rights. Thein Sein reaffirmed these pledges when he visited the White House in 2013.<\/p>\n
Such political transformations are always difficult, and the Obama administration has had to balance its response. The United States was a leader in imposing sanctions on the junta, but in order to encourage more openness, many sanctions have been lifted and business investment now is flowing into the country. \u00a0Under a constitution written by the military, at least 25 percent of the seats in parliament are reserved for the military; Suu Kyi\u2019s political party is greatly limited in the number of seats it is permitted to contest. A provision in the constitution currently prevents her from running for president.<\/p>\n
One key question is whether the rush to lift sanctions robbed the United States of leverage to prod the government to open even further and to curtail human rights abuses, such as brutal attacks on Muslims and continuing ethnic conflicts.<\/p>\n
For the purposes of this fact check, we will examine how the administration has stood up against atrocities and shown \u201crobust support for the people and civil society activists,\u201d as asserted by Power and Rice, especially as the United States proposes to step up military cooperation with Burma. The risk is that the desire for a success-story narrative makes U.S. officials increasingly reluctant to speak out.<\/p>\n
Power, when she was a White House official, in 2012 laid down some key markers\u2014including the \u201ccritical urgency\u201d of \u201cbringing those responsible \u00a0[for anti-Muslim violence] \u00a0to justice\u201d\u2013 in a blog post<\/a> that appeared during Obama\u2019s visit to Burma:<\/p>\n The challenge of ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence \u2014 including in Shan State, Kachin State, and Rakhine State \u2013\u00a0 remains an area of deep and on-going concern. If left unaddressed, it will undermine progress toward national reconciliation, stability, and lasting peace. Serious human rights abuses against civilians in several regions continue, including against women and children.\u00a0 Humanitarian access to hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons remains a serious challenge and on-going crisis. The government and the ethnic nationalities need to work together urgently to find a path to lasting peace that addresses minority rights, deals with differences through dialogue not violence, heals the wounds of the past, and carries reforms forward. The situation in Rakhine State and the recent violence against the Rohingya and other Muslims last week only underscores the critical urgency of ensuring the safety and security of all individuals in the area, investigating all reports of violence and bringing those responsible to justice, according citizenship and full rights to the Rohingya, and bringing about economic opportunity for all local populations.<\/i><\/p>\n The Facts<\/b><\/p>\n During Rice\u2019s speech, she applauded the fact that \u201c1,000 political prisoners have been released.\u201d But she neglected to mention that these were conditional releases, which means the government can throw activists back into prison on the flimsiest of charges.<\/p>\n For instance, when The Fact Checker asked for evidence of Powers standing up for human rights in Burma, an aide provided tweets from the ambassador, noting that one prisoner was released after a tweet that lauded \u201ctwo years of real improvements on human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Unfortunately, this activist was arrested and jailed just weeks later, with new charges dating back to 2007<\/a>. Power has not tweeted about the more recent arrest. There are reports of a sweeping New Year\u2019s amnesty<\/a> of political prisoners\u2014though apparently these still would be conditional\u2013but there remain more than 1,000 Rohingya prisoners.<\/p>\n A senior State Department official, assigned to answer The Fact Checker\u2019s questions under the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivities, said the United States remains concerned about the conditional releases and is \u201cactively encouraging\u201d the government to revise \u201cbad laws,\u201d such as those concerning the right of assembly, that are the basis for many of the rearrests<\/a>. \u201cWe are not shy about calling the government out,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n Earlier in 2013, civil-society groups were concerned about a draft law that they believed would greatly restrict their activities. The State Department official said that the United States brought together members of parliament and civil society experts to revise the wording. \u201cThe current draft is quite a good law,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n Still, the draft has not been passed into law and other laws have not been updated. Civil society groups have become anxious and are preparing to protest<\/a> what they call repressive laws.<\/p>\n The timelines for progress asserted by government officials also keep slipping. On July 15, in a speech in the United Kingdom, Thein Sein declared: \u00a0\u201cOver the coming weeks, we will have a nationwide cease-fire and the guns will go silent everywhere in Myanmar for the very first time in over 60 years.\u201d But the guns have not gone silent and last week, chief negotiator, U Aung Min, said\u00a0 he is \u201choping to present positive news of successful peace talks to regional leaders when they gather in Myanmar for their ASEAN meetings in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n Many of Thein Sein\u2019s commitments to Obama remain only partially fulfilled or even ignored<\/a>. The State Department official acknowledged no action has been taken on a promise to establish an office in Burma for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. \u201cWe\u2019re pressing them very hard to open a U.N. office,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n Still, there is evidence that human rights appear to take a back seat in the administration\u2019s public talking points. During a presentation in the fall at the Asia Society<\/a> on \u201cresponsible investment\u201d in Burma, held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, State Department Burma coordinator Judith Cefkin made no reference to ethnic conflicts, attacks on Muslims or even Suu Kyi as she declared that a \u201ctrue priority\u201d for the United States was economic development.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the very key areas of work and an area that is a true priority for the U.S. government in our policy is the economic development of Myanmar, but economic development which takes place in a way which broadly enhances the welfare of the people of Myanmar,\u201d Cefkin told an audience that included Burma\u2019s foreign minister.<\/p>\n In the interview, the senior State Department official noted that, unlike many other Western countries, the United States has maintained some sanctions and the so-called Specially Designated Nationals list for Burma maintained by the Treasury Department remains active. The administration recently expanded<\/a> the list but the additions were all related to alleged interactions with North Korea, not human rights. Indeed, the news release regarding one such designation took pains not to blame the Burmese government,\u00a0emphasizing<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cit does not target the Government of Burma, which has continued to take positive steps in severing its military ties with North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, even as greater political space has opened up in Burma, a wave of anti-Muslim violence also has emerged. In particular, attacks by extremist Buddhists have targeted the\u00a0Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that faces state-sponsored discrimination, including a refusal to grant citizenship despite decades of living within Burma\u2019s borders. U.S. Ambassador Derek Mitchell has twice traveled to the region.<\/p>\n \u201cLed by our embassy in Rangoon, we pressed the Government of Burma to take a strong principled public stand on the issue, and to crack down on all perpetrators of violence without prejudice in a timely fashion according to due process,\u201d the State Department official said. \u00a0\u201cWe urged stronger and more decisive measures to combat sectarian violence and religious extremism, and to address serious and ongoing human rights abuses, including in Rakhine State.\u201d<\/p>\n The Obama administration co-sponsored a U.N. General Assembly resolution<\/a> that expressed concern about the treatment of the Rohingya in Burma, but it has not supported calls from U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, 12 Nobel Peace laureates and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) for an independent investigation into anti-Muslim violence. Some 140,000 people have fled to internal displacement camps to escape the violence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe best prevention against future violence is accountability, and our focus thus far has been on pressing the Burmese government to do more on this front,\u201d the official said in explaining why the United States has not supported an independent inquiry. \u201cThe government has taken some steps to investigate and prosecute individuals for the violence, but there is much more the government can and should do.\u00a0 At this time, our assessment has been that supporting a call for such an international investigation would not advance this goal.\u00a0 We will continue to evaluate the situation and adjust our policy accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n The official said that the administration did prevail on the government to dismantle the notorious border guard\u2014known as the NaSaKa\u2014which was accused of leading the attacks on the Rohingyas. The guard was replaced by local Rakhine police, which some reports suggest<\/a> would mean little improvement in the treatment of the Muslim minority. \u201cWe continue to monitor what has replaced it,\u201d the official said.<\/p>\n An official with Human Rights Watch was quoted as saying<\/a> the Treasury Department had considered sanctioning the NaSaKa, which is what prompted Thein Sein to abolish it.<\/p>\n Asked why individual leaders of the NaSaKa have not been targeted for sanctions, the State Department official said: \u00a0\u201cAs a practical matter, listing of individuals who were part of NaSaKa would have been unlikely to have had a demonstrable impact beyond the action the Burmese Government took on its own. \u00a0As evidence becomes available we continue to review both entities and individuals for new listings.\u201d<\/p>\n The official said that the administration is \u201creally urging the government to create a path to citizenship\u201d for the Rohingyas. \u201cThe government says they have a plan for that,\u201d the official asserted. \u201cWe don\u2019t think it is just lip service\u2014we have seen some signs of preparation in government\u2013 but they remain worried about the local reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n Notably, Thein Sein defended<\/a> controversial Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu after Time magazine labeled him \u201cthe face of Buddhist terror.\u201d<\/p>\n The Obama administration\u2019s push to expand military-to-military ties with Burma has also alarmed ethnic groups in the country, which make up 40 percent of the population.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are deeply concerned that your current approach to military-to-military relations will neither prove beneficial to our mutual goals of ending the Burmese military\u2019s perpetration of human rights violations against us, nor bring us closer to national reconciliation,\u201d 133 ethnic civil-society groups wrote in a letter to Obama<\/a> and the prime ministers of the United Kingdom and Australia. \u201cWe urge you not to pursue military-to-military engagement without taking into consideration our concerns,\u201d which included setting preconditions such as human rights training and ending the military\u2019s lucrative economic enterprises.<\/p>\n The administration\u2019s determination to expand military contacts, including training, has been viewed skeptically by some members of Congress. \u201cI don\u2019t believe the Burmese military needs to be trained to stop killing, raping, and stealing land from people in their country,\u201d said Rep. \u00a0Joseph Crowley (D-N.Y.) at a recent congressional hearing.<\/p>\n Power was responsible for helping to create the Obama administration\u2019s Atrocities Prevention Board, an interagency task force. The administration\u2019s most comprehensive description<\/a> of what the board has done in its first year barely mentions Burma, though it asserts that \u201cthe U.S. Government is playing an important ongoing role in supporting efforts to address violence and protect vulnerable communities.\u201d The only specific example is supporting a special rapporteur to carry out investigations in Burma\u2014whose mandate expires in March.<\/p>\n