US President Barack Obama has voiced optimism that Burma is on the right path to democracy, despite worrying "backsliding" on its much celebrated reform process.
Obama delivered his cautiously upbeat assessment on Thursday after holding separate meetings with Burma, also known as Myanmar, President Thein Sein and a group of lawmakers, including democracy heroine Aung San Suu Kyi, in the Southeast Asian nation's remote capital of Naypyidaw.
"The democratic process in Myanmar is real," Obama said following his hour-long talks with Thein Sein, a former general who in 2011 ended decades of military rule that had made the country a pariah state.
"We recognise change is hard and you do not always move in a straight line, but I'm optimistic."
Obama was in Naypyidaw for the East Asia Summit, gathering leaders from 18 nations for talks on issues ranging from regional territorial spats to economic integration and fighting terrorism.
But much of Obama's focus on Thursday was on Burma's democracy efforts.
Earlier in the day, he met Suu Kyi, a fellow Nobel laureate, and about a dozen other Burma lawmakers to discuss the reforms.
He had set the tone for his three-day trip with hard-hitting comments on the pace of reforms in an interview with news website The Irrawaddy, published to coincide with his arrival on Wednesday.
"Even as there has been some progress on the political and economic fronts, in other areas there has been a slowdown and backsliding in reforms," Obama said.
"In addition to restrictions on freedom of the press, we continue to see violations of basic human rights and abuses in the country's ethnic areas, including reports of extrajudicial killings, rape and forced labour."
Obama specifically identified the plight of the nation's Muslim Rohingya minority as a concern.
Around 140,000 Rohingya languish in fetid displacement camps in western Rakhine State after religious violence flared two years ago, leaving about 200 dead.
Obama also criticised the failure to make important changes to the constitution ahead of elections next year. One key issue is a clause that bans Suu Kyi from becoming president.
Obama will hold more in-depth discussions with Suu Kyi on Friday in the commercial hub of Yangon.
AFP
source: newshub archive
