Jim Webb in Burma: Don't Back Down on Suu Kyi!

Jim Webb has arrived in Burma:

Jim Webb, chairman of a Senate subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs, arrived in Naypyidaw, the Southeast Asian country's remote new capital, and would meet leader Than Shwe on Saturday, said the source who declined to be named.

Webb is the first member of Congress to travel in an official capacity to Myanmar in more than a decade, and has also been described as the first senior American official ever to meet Than Shwe.

It is unclear what he aims to achieve. He arrives the same week that Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate and a symbol of the movement for democracy in Myanmar, was sentenced to another 18 months' house arrest for violating a security law.

[...]

Webb's office said on August 6 he would travel to five countries in Southeast Asia on a two-week mission "to explore opportunities to advance U.S. interests in Burma (Myanmar) and the region."

Frankly, the way to advance U.S. interests in Burma (Myanmar) is to ratchet up the pressure BIG TIME on that country's horrible, evil, corrupt, disgraceful government. Jim Webb can start by not backing down on the persecution and harassment of Aung San Suu Kyi, who won Burma's general election "decisively" in 1990 but never assumed office because the results were "nullified" by the military junta and Suu Kyi placed under house arrest. In 1990, Suu Kyi was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and in 1991 she received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, in 2006, the International Labour Organization said that it would seek to "prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity." And in 2007, anti-government protests by Burmese monks and others were brutally suppressed. As if all this isn't bad enough, in May 2008, the ruling thugs/junta prevented international assistance to survivors of Cyclone Nargis, greatly exacerbating a situation which resulted in 200,000 people dead and 1 million homeless.

This is the evil regime we're dealing with here, and this is who Jim Webb will be meeting with. Given all that, I urge Senator Webb not to "back down," as his favorite Tom Petty song says, to "stand his ground" and not be "turned around." Demand the immediate, unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi, or tell the Burmese junta where to shove it.