Sen. Webb: U.S. Can Help Myanmar Move Forward

U.S. Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) is on his way home after a two-week tour to Southeast Asia. His final stop was Hanoi, Vietnam.

Earlier he met with the reclusive leadership in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. He won the release of an American who was being held there. Webb also was permitted to meet with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest.

Webb says he was told that he was the first American leader to meet with Senior Gen. Than Shwe. Webb tells Steve Inskeep that Shwe is a reclusive leader, and that the governmental leadership in Myanmar is also very isolated from the outside world.

"They are isolated physically," Webb says. "And they're isolated in terms of the viewpoints that they receive about how the world reacts to certain things that they do."

Webb told Myanmar's leaders how important it is, in his view, that they find a way to allow Aung San Suu Kyi to participate in the political process. He told them "the world views the leadership of Myanmar through the way that they treat her."

Webb says it's time do something about the U.S. sanctions that have been put in place against Myanmar. "We need to find a different way to deal with the problem," the senator said.

"We have isolated the Burmese people from cultures and individuals and systems of government that could actually elevate their consciousness," Webb says.

"We essentially are delivering Myanmar over to the Chinese," Webb says. "Sanctions don't work when the largest country in the world is on your border and is buying you up. It's a huge strategic error that the United States is making."

"We all want to assist and help the people of Burma to move forward," he says, "but we have to find a way that actually can do that and allow the people of Burma to prosper and have access to the outside world."

The senator compares the situation in Myanmar with that of Vietnam. Webb, a Vietnam War veteran, began making return trips to Vietnam in 1991.

After the U.S. lifted sanctions against Vietnam, Webb says, he saw the benefit of that decision. Previously he had been opposed to lifting sanctions.

Lifting the sanctions allowed the Vietnamese people "to have contact with the outside world, and to see step-by-step how a process can evolve," he says.

"It's not perfect in Vietnam," Webb says. "The interim solution in Myanmar would not be perfect, but we have to take opportunities as they arise and build on them.

"If we have reciprocal gestures, and if we are careful in our response, we can assist Myanmar in moving forward, and not forget our friends along the way."