Secretary of State Clinton will be delivering several speeches and attending three swearing-in ceremonies today including Kurt Campbell's, the new Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs. I have written previously of Campbell's trials and travails in making it through the confirmation process and the extraordinarly long time it took to move his nomination throught the Senate Foreign Relations Committee because of Virginia Senator Jim Webb. Several sources speculated that Webb had orchestrated a quid-pro-quo with Clinton on the direction of the administration's Burma policy in return for confirming Campbell. The administration's review of policy options on a country widely regarded as neck-and-neck with North Korea when it comes to horrific abuses of human rights is now in its eighth month and still not finished. Clinton made noises about dropping US sanctions this summer, and in August, Webb visited Burma, voiced opposition to US sanctions and publicly pushed for the country's democracy movement --the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Nobel Peace Prize Lauriate Aung San Suu Kyi -- to engage in junta sponsored elections next year. The NLD shot back in an unprecedented Washington Post op-ed calling Webb's efforts "damaging to our democracy movement."
So....on the day Campbell is being officially sworn in for his position, which senator appears on Clinton's schedule for a closed-door meeting? None other than Webb. HHHHHMMMmmmmmmmm
Burma watchers want to know: what could possibly be the topic of discussion?
Perhaps it could be the news report released yesterday by Radio Free Asia reporter Sarah Jackson-Han detailing the Burmese Army's scorched earth campaign against the Karen ethnic group and their forced conscription of childern as young as 10. In a report datelined yesterday from Northern Thailand, Jackson-Han begins with this:
"Children as young as 10 are being forced to work as porters for the Burmese military...one woman carrying her three-year-old son in a sling in front of her demonstrated how she had to carry artillery shells in a basket on her back at the same time. If her child cried, she was told to put her hand over his face to silence him or face a reprimand from the soldiers.
"She said she had had to carry the shells for four days at a time and was allowed to stop and rest only two or three times a day."
Human Rights Watch, when not collecting Nazi memorabilia, has previously documented the Burmese military's use of refugees as human minesweepers in their ongoing war against ethnic minorities, a war that has recently ratcheted up.
There is also the chance Webb and Clinton could be talking about attending Human Rights Watch's program tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. in Senate Russell 236 highlighting the plight of Burmese political prisoners. If Webb and Clinton swing by they can meet U Pyinya Zawta, who is scheduled to speak. He spent 10 years as a political prisoner and is executive director of the All Burma Monks' Alliance, the organization that led the massive 2007 peaceful uprising against junta rule in Burma until the regime unleashed its military force to crush it. This revered monk and freedom fighter also took issue with Webb's approach to lifting sanctions by penning a piece calling Webb "ignorant" and traveling "to Burma to lean not on Burma's military regime, but to pressure my country's democracy movement into giving up economic sanctions -- the most important tool in our struggle for freedom."
Or..Webb and Clinton might just be spending their meeting time today figuring out how to alienate another democracy movement by dropping sanctions and strengthening a brutal military regime.
