In the first visit by a US president to the country, Barack Obama on Monday told a handpicked audience at Yangon University that changes afoot were irreversible and that, after five decades of dictatorship, Myanmar’s people could “taste freedom”.
Addressing
a cross-section of civil and political society Mr Obama offered a civics lesson
in democracy, drawing strong applause when he said that the most important
office was not that of president but that of citizen. “You the citizens of this
country are the ones who are going to define what freedom means,” he said.
Yangon
University, the scene of repeated violent crackdowns against students over
decades, had been spruced up in recent days for the speech. Aung Zaw, editor of
the online Irrawaddy journal, said the university was “a totally appropriate”
venue for the president’s address. “This is where hundreds of students were
killed,” he said.
Before
his speech Mr Obama met Thein Sein, the president who has propelled he
country’s remarkable 18-month transformation, as well as Aung San Suu Kyi the
opposition leader who is now a member of parliament. He also toured the
Shwedagon Pagoda where Ms Suu Kyi launched the democracy movement in 1988.
Mr
Obama devoted part of his speech to Myanmar’s festering ethnic conflicts, including continued war in the northern
Kachin state and an upsurge in communal violence against Muslim Rohingya in
western Rakhine state. Addressing widespread prejudice against the Rohingya, he
said: “Rohingya hold within themselves the same dignity as you do, and I do.”
He
called on all communities to stop what he called “incitement to violence” after
recent incidents in which 170 Rohingya were killed, thousands burnt out of
their homes and more than 100,000 displaced.
Some
members of the audience said they appreciated Mr Obama’s words of solidarity
for the persecuted group but others were less sympathetic. Zaw Aye Maung, a
Rakhine official, said it was “unacceptable” for Mr Obama to use the term
Rohingya adding that they were Bengali immigrants, not one of the country’s main
ethnic groups.
In
1982, a government commission stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship
rendering them stateless.
“He
tried to touch every issue which is hard to do but his overall theme was
freedom and he managed to stick to that,” said Thiha Saw, editor of Myanma
Dana, a mainstream weekly newspaper. “It was particularly clever to put the
Rohingya issue in the context of religious freedom.”
Myo
Yan Naung Thein, director of the Bayda Institute, which studies social
development, was among 14 civil society leaders chosen to meet Mr Obama before
his speech. He said he told the president to “listen to more voices from inside
Myanmar rather than outside”.
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