Was it wise for the Obama administration to reverse the Bush administration’s policy of distancing the U.S. from the United Nations Human Rights Council? With the Council’s 15th session underway, it’s a question worth asking. The Council has been receiving more attention than unusual lately because the administration recently submitted a report on the U.S. human rights record for the Council’s Universal Periodic Review process. The report has led many to question what America gets out of membership on that body. In response, the U.S. ambassador to the Council, Eileen …
North Korea’s status as an international pariah is richly deserved. The country is a proliferator of nuclear technology having helped build a Syrian nuclear site that was destroyed by Israel and is believed to be assisting Burma in its own clandestine nuclear program. North Korea successfully detonated two nuclear devices on October 9, 2006, and May 25, 2009 and the U.S. believes North Korea has enough plutonium for at least half a dozen nuclear weapons. The regime has been striving to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering these …
A recent story by Fox News provides yet another example of the United Nations Development Program’s refusal to accede to an unfortunate reality: that the organization’s efforts to work with, and through, the world’s most despotic regimes are regularly twisted to serve the goals of the regime rather than the people suffering under their rule. According to the story: An independent assessment of a $100 million United Nations Development Program aid effort in Burma calls it ‘disappointing,’ and ‘unsatisfactory,’ and suggests that major portions of the program be discontinued next …
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, on July 22 to participate in Asia’s largest security conference. This past week’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF) and the 43rd ASEAN Plus Three Foreign Ministers Meeting was filled with diplomatic discussions on how to create a safer and more economically efficient East Asian community. At the ASEAN Plus and ARF dialogues, Clinton participated in several discussions, including ones on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, their recent attack on a South Korean Naval Ship, Burma’s upcoming political elections and …
In today’s New York Times, Senator Webb makes his case for a new American policy on Burma. For someone so closely identified with opposition to sanctions, one would expect his alternative to be much bolder. After so much build up, is this it? Senator Webb’s policy suggestions boil down to talking with the junta government, increasing humanitarian aid, and cooperation on the recovery of American World War II remains. Perhaps, he is only being realistic. In the current environment, when Congress has just unanimously approved and the President has signed …
In exchange for the release of John Yettaw, the American who provided Burma’s ruling junta an excuse to extend the house arrest of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, Senator Jim Webb provided the junta an opportunity for saturation media coverage of what will pass there as US endorsement of its rule. This was a simple transaction. Junta chief Than Shwe got what he wanted, and he gave up something (someone) that had already served the regime’s purpose. It will not lead to a new opening in US-Burma relations – …
U.S. Senator James Webb (D-VA) is in Burma today. News reports indicate that he will be meeting with junta leader Than Shwe in what is being billed as the first ever meeting between the junta chief and a U.S. official. Coming just days after the regime extended the detention of Democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, the meeting will certainly serve to validate the junta at a time when international revulsion has reached one of its periodic, crisis driven peaks. This is unfortunate. But there is more at stake than …
