Hurricane McCain Blows into Burma with Message of Change

During his 2008 presidential campaign, US Sen John McCain branded himself as a maverick and a straight shooter. It didn't win him the election, but the image has stuck. And now, as he completes a three-day visit to Burma, his reputation for speaking his own mind has been put to good purpose, bringing a gust of fresh air to a stale debate about how the West should respond to the country's recent transition to quasi-civilian rule.

It was clear from the outset that McCain's visit wasn't going to be like those of senior State Department officials—emissaries of the Obama administration's policy of “pragmatic engagement”—or even that of fellow senator Jim Webb, who traveled to Burma in 2009 and met with junta supremo Than Shwe.

Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

Unlike Webb, who skirted the issue of how the regime treats its own people, and focused instead on extracting a US citizen the junta was only too happy to be rid of (while also plugging the idea of abandoning sanctions that stand in the way of US investment in resource-rich Burma), McCain put the plight of Burma's people front and center.

He did this even before he arrived in the country to meet with Burmese officials and opposition and ethnic leaders, by visiting the Thai border town of Mae Sot, home to hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees, migrant workers and political activists.

But this was more than a symbolic detour. The trip to Mae Sot—a town also visited by former first lady Laura Bush in 2008—gave McCain a chance to see for himself that conflict in Burma is alive and well, and still destroying countless lives.

It also sent a message to Thailand, which has suggested that the end of overtly military rule in Burma means that refugees no longer need to remain on Thai soil, that the world is still watching what is happening on its borders. And it served as a reminder to McCain's colleagues on Capitol Hill, where many of his fellow Republicans are looking for ways to shrink the budget, that this isn't the time to think of cutting back on aid for refugees.

This wasn't McCain's first trip to Burma. Fifteen years ago, he met opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during a visit to the country, and he has made many attempts to return since then. Indeed, speaking today at the US Embassy in Rangoon, he said, “I acknowledge that this new government represents some change from the past, and one illustration of this change was their willingness to allow me to return to this country after 15 years worth of attempts to do so on my part were rejected.”

If the new government hoped that this gesture would make McCain rethink his position on certain issues, it was mistaken. In his press briefing, he reiterated his call for the “unconditional release of all political prisoners of conscience” and stated that for any process of national reconciliation to be deemed legitimate, it “would have to involve Aung San Suu Kyi, ethnic minority and other opposition leaders, and the National League for Democracy.”

None of these are radical ideas, but in the wake of last year's election, and amid all the talk of “failed” sanctions and the need for a new approach to Burma, there has been serious discussion of whether Suu Kyi and her party are obstacles to progress. By stating that they are in fact key to the country's political future, McCain swept aside efforts by President Thein Sein to placate its foreign critics with platitudes about “good governance” and challenged his government to take meaningful action that could pave the way to closer ties with Washington.

“The United States is not condemned to have bad relations with any country, as our recent experience with neighboring Vietnam demonstrates,” said McCain, a Vietnam War veteran and former prisoner of war. But at the same time, he left no doubt that Burma's rulers can't hope for any real improvement in relations with the West as long as they continue to mistreat their own citizens.

An important test of how much responsibility the new government is willing to take for the well-being of Burmese citizens will be the way it responds to Suu Kyi's plans to visit supporters outside of Rangoon.