“We want to seize what could be an historic opportunity for progress and make it clear that if Burma continues to travel down the road of democratic reform, it can forge a new relationship with the United States of America,” Obama said Friday during his diplomatic mission to southeast Asia.

In exploring a breakthrough engagement with Myanmar, also known as Burma, the president first sought assurances of support from democracy leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. She spent 15 years on house arrest by the nation’s former military dictators but is now in talks with the new civilian government about reforming the country.

The two spoke by phone on Thursday night while Obama was flying to Bali on Air Force One.

By sending in his chief diplomat, Obama’s is out to acknowledge and accelerate fledgling reforms in Myanmar, a calculated political risk in a place where repression is still common. He warned that if the country fails to commit to a true opening of its society, “it will continue to face sanctions and isolation.”

Obama said that the current environment is a rare opening that could help millions of people “and that possibility is too important to ignore.”

“The visit clearly demonstrates that United States is stepping up its engagement policy,” said Aung Thein, a prominent lawyer and a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party. “It is better to see Myanmar’s political situation on the ground rather than watch from a distance, We welcome the visit.”

The administration sees Clinton’s visit as a sign of success for Obama’s policy on Myanmar, which was outlined in 2009 and focused on punishments and incentives to get the country’s former military rulers to improve dire human rights conditions. The U.S. imposed new sanctions on Myanmar but made clear it was open to better relations if the situation changed.

Now Myanmar’s nominally civilian government, which took power in March, has declared its intention to liberalize the hard-line policies of the junta that preceded it. It has taken some fledgling steps, such as easing censorship, legalizing labor unions, suspending an unpopular, China-backed dam project and working with Suu Kyi.

“After years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress in these last several weeks,” Obama declared Friday.

Officials said Clinton would travel to Myanmar Dec. 1.

The move came as Obama deepened ties with Asia, appealing to nations large and small for help with the American security agenda. Nearing the end of a nine-day trip across the Pacific, Obama was trying to prod for some progress over the hotly contested South China Sea, one of the most vital shipping channels in the world.

It also came as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations decided that Myanmar would chair the regional bloc in 2014, a significant perch that Myanmar was forced to skip in 2006 because of intense criticism of its rights record.

A U.S. opening with Myanmar would also contribute to Obama’s rebalancing goals, as Burma’s military leaders for long had close ties to China.

Beijing has poured billions of dollars of investment into Myanmar to operate mines, extract timber and build oil and gas pipelines. China has also been a staunch supporter of the country’s politically isolated government and is Myanmar’s second-biggest trading partner after Thailand.

Senior administration officials, briefing reporters Friday, stressed that the new engagement with Myanmar was not about China. They said the Obama administration consulted with China about the move and said they expected China to be supportive. They argued that China in fact wants to see a stable Burma on its borders, so that it doesn’t risk problems with refugees or other results of political instability.

Human rights groups welcomed Obama’s announcement as an opportunity to compel further reforms.

“We’ve been arguing a long time that political engagement and political pressure are not mutually exclusive,” Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International’s Southeast Asia researcher, told The Associated Press, adding that Clinton “should not miss the opportunity in this historic visit to pressure the government and speak very clearly that the human rights violations taking place there need to stop.”

Elaine Pearson, the deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said the Burmese government must realize that a visit by Clinton “puts them on notice, not lets them off the hook for their continually atrocious human rights record.”

Myanmar, a former breadbasket of Southeast Asia, has suffered not just repressive government but poor economic management during nearly 50 years of military rule.

It is subject to wide-ranging trade, economic and political sanctions from the U.S. and other Western nations, enforced in response to brutal crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters in 1988 and 2007 and its refusal to hand power to pro-democracy leader Suu Kyi’s party after the 1990 elections.

Obama will see Burma’s president during a summit of Southeast Asian nations. The two have met before, at an ASEAN meeting in Singapore, when Thein Sein was prime minister.

The announcement was the capstone to a day of diplomatic meetings on the sidelines of summits with Asian leaders, including India, Malaysia and the Philippines. Administration officials said Obama raised the issue of Myanmar in his meetings with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Philippine President Benigno Aquino III. Officials said they expected ASEAN members to be supportive.

Earlier, in a move promoting American trade, Obama presided over a deal that will send Boeing planes to an Indonesian company and create jobs back home, underscoring the value of the lucrative Asia-Pacific market to a president needing some good economic news.

Obama stood watch as executives of Boeing and Lion Air, a private carrier in Indonesia, signed a deal that amounts to Boeing’s largest commercial plane order. Lion Air ordered 230 airplanes, and the White House said it would support tens of thousands of jobs in the U.S.

Obama arrived in this resort island late Thursday from Australia, where he announced a new military presence and sent Beijing a message that America “is all in” across the Asia-Pacific. The White House is determined to show that American leadership here, far from home, is wanted after a decade in which wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dominated attention.

Obama will attend a meeting with the heads of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations, or ASEAN, whose 10 members include host Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. The group will expand for the East Asia Summit, a forum that also counts China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and the U.S. as members. — AP

The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) said the amnesty for 6,359 convicts was insincere and primarily an effort to appease the international community. It estimated that at least 207 political prisoners had been freed.

“The use of amnesties by past regimes has come at times of mounting international pressure and been used as tokens of change, rather than substance of change,” it said in a statement. “This week’s prisoner release does not suggest anything different from earlier amnesties.”

A major release of political detainees has been eagerly awaited by Myanmar’s opposition, as well as foreign governments and the U.N., as a gesture toward liberalization by the elected government after decades of harsh military rule.

A failure to release a significant number could hamper the country’s efforts to burnish its human rights record and win a lifting of Western economic and political sanctions.

The United States, which is seeking ways to step up engagement with Myanmar after years of isolation, has welcomed the releases but is urging the government to go further.

John Kerry, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday the releases were the most recent sign that Myanmar’s President Thein Sein and his advisers “seem to be distancing themselves from the failed policies of the past.”

In a statement, the Democrat senator said the committee — which oversees U.S. foreign policy — would be watching to see how the freed people are treated and whether it part of a broader movement that will include the release of all political detainees.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the releases made thus far, and hopes that all political prisoners will be freed, his spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

Zarganar, the most prominent dissident freed Wednesday under the amnesty, also issued a plea for all the country’s political prisoners to be released.

“Free everyone, free them all, including the former military intelligence chief and his men,” the popular comedian and social activist told The Associated Press. He said the former intelligence officers — who once were responsible for persecuting dissidents such as himself and ended up in jail for being on the losing side of a power struggle — should be freed because they were also convicted by the previous military government. — AP

The regime pardoned about 200 political prisoners, according to pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, but kept most of its roughly 2,000 political detainees locked up.

“There are still many prisoners who we expected to be released and who the people expected to be released. We feel frustrated,” NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.

Some observers, however, said the amnesty could be one of several by a regime that appears eager to end its international isolation but is wary of potential unrest.

The fate of political prisoners in Myanmar is a key concern of western governments that have imposed sanctions on the isolated nation.

The United States and United Nations separately gave cautious welcomes to Wednesday’s prison releases, but called for all political detainees in Myanmar to be released.

“We see it as an important step that responds to the aspirations of the Burmese people,” US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

“We have not yet seen a complete list. We do believe that there is still a large number of political prisoners in prison, and we call for all of them to be released.”

The Obama administration — which has pursued a dual-track policy of engaging with Myanmar while retaining sanctions against it — has noted tentative signs of political change in Myanmar, also called Burma.

Jim Della-Giacoma, Southeast Asia project director at the think-tank International Crisis Group, said of the amnesty: “It is important to see this as part of an ongoing effort of reforms across the country.

“This will be part of a series of releases. The president seems very committed to the ambitious reform agenda he announced in March, and he is moving at a pace that is surprising for many.”

Myanmar expert Aung Naing Oo, of the Vahu Development Institute, a Thai-based think-tank, said the country’s rulers could be held back by “security concerns” about releasing high-profile dissidents.

The international community should “encourage the government to be more confident,” he added.

The famous satirist Zarganar was among those released. The regime was also believed to have freed General Hso Ten, a prominent ethnic Shan leader sentenced to 106 years for charges including high treason.

But many leading dissidents, including key figures involved in a failed 1988 student-led uprising, as well as journalists, monks and lawyers, remained locked up.

Phyo Min Thein, an activist and the brother-in-law of Htay Kywe, who led the 88 Generation Students Group and is currently serving a 65-year sentence, said the government should not fear dissidents who have campaigned for democracy.

“We will continue our demands to release them. We felt very sorry yesterday when we heard that he was not among the release list. We had high expectations of the amnesty,” he said.

The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said the pardon “lacks sincerity” and warned the regime’s failure to recognise critics as political prisoners was a barrier to reconciliation.

The amnesty came amid heightened hopes of reform following a series of moves by President Thein Sein, a former general, including talks with Suu Kyi, who spent most of the past two decades locked up by the junta.

In a rare concession to public opinion, Myanmar last month suspended construction of a controversial mega-dam, risking the anger of traditional ally China, which is backing the project.

Wai Hnin Pwint Thon, an activist with the Burma Campaign UK and daughter of political prisoner Ko Mya Aye, said she was “extremely disappointed” and that the move was “not enough to justify the lifting of any sanctions”.

“Today is a day of joy for the families of those who have been released, but for many more it is a day of sadness and disappointment, as their father, mother, husband, brother or sister remain in jail. This is a reality check, change hasn’t come to Burma yet.” — AFP

Relatives of convicts gathered expectantly at prisons around the country and held emotional reunions with those released, a day after the country’s new civilian president issued an amnesty for inmates — many of them ordinary criminals — but without disclosing any names.

It was not clear how many of the country’s estimated 2,000 political detainees were included in the amnesty. Relatives of some of them confirmed their release, while others said they were told by prison officials that their loved ones were not among those to be freed.

“The freedom of each individual is invaluable, but I wish that all political prisoners would be released,” said Myanmar’s most prominent pro-democracy campaigner and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy confirmed the release of 155 political detainees, including members of the party, spokesman Nyan Win said. But others may have not yet contacted anyone.

A major release of political detainees has been eagerly awaited by Myanmar’s opposition, as well as foreign governments and the U.N., as a gesture toward liberalization by the elected government after decades of harsh military rule.

A failure to release a significant number could hamper the country’s efforts to burnish its human rights record and win a lifting of Western economic and political sanctions.

President Thein Sein, a retired senior army officer who took office at the head of an elected government in March, has launched a series of economic reforms and eased limits on freedom of speech by relaxing censorship and unblocking banned websites.

He also has started a dialogue with Suu Kyi, made calls for peace with ethnic minority rebel groups and suspending a controversial China-backed hydropower dam project after a public outcry.

One of the most prominent figures to be freed was comedian and activist Zarganar, who was serving a 35-year sentence in Myitkyina prison in northernmost Kachin State.

Zarganar was detained in 2008 after giving interviews to foreign media criticizing the former military rulers for being slow to respond to Cyclone Nargis, which left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing. He was convicted of causing public alarm and illegally giving information to the press.

“I am not happy at all, as none of my 14 so-called political prisoner friends from Myitkyina prison are among those freed today,” he told The Associated Press by phone as he waited to board a plane to Yangon.

“I will be happy and I will thank the government only when all of my friends are freed,” he said.

Relatives said several top members of some of the country’s ethnic minority political parties were also among those freed.

However, the sister of famous former student leader Min Ko Naing said she was told he was not on the list of those to be freed.

“We are used to these ups and downs,” Kyi Kyi Nyunt said.

Min Ko Naing has been serving a 65-year sentence at a prison in Shan State in northeastern Myanmar since 2008 for staging a street protest against a massive fuel price hike. He was arrested in August 2007 along with other well-known former students who were previously jailed after being at the forefront of a failed pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

At least one of his “‘88 Generation” comrades, Ko Htay Kywe, also was not being released, according to his brother-in-law, Phyo Min Thein.

The United States, which has been seeking ways to re-engage with Myanmar, has said it wants all political detainees released. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Tuesday that the U.S. would be keeping a close eye on who is released under the amnesty.

Washington has long isolated Myanmar with political and economic sanctions because of the former junta’s failure to hand power to a democratically elected government and its poor human rights record. — AP

Myanmar freed dozens of political prisoners on Wednesday, including a comedian who is one of its most famous dissidents, in a further sign of change in the authoritarian state after decades of repression.

The release of roughly 2,000 political detainees including pro-democracy campaigners, journalists, monks and lawyers, has long been a key demand of Western powers that have imposed sanctions on the country also known as Burma.

The Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said at least 70 political detainees were being freed.

“I think we will see some more,” said spokesman Aung Khaing Min.

The prominent satirist and vocal government critic Zarganar, who goes by one name, was among those released as part of a pardon of more than 6,300 prisoners by the new nominally civilian leadership, his sister-in-law told AFP.

The dissident was arrested in 2008 after organising deliveries of aid to victims of Cyclone Nargis — which left 138,000 people dead or missing — and sentenced to 59 years’ imprisonment, later reduced to 35 years.

Several hundred prisoners were being released from Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison, including student activist Aung Kyaw Soe, who was arrested in 1990 and sentenced to death, later reduced to life in prison.

“I was released after serving 21 years and two days. I am glad that I was freed but I am also sorry for the people who are still inside the prison,” he told AFP outside the jail gates.

Many of Myanmar’s political prisoners were sentenced to decades in jail and have endured “torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”, according to rights group Amnesty International.

A mass pardon of dissidents would be arguably the clearest sign yet of change under a new government that has reached out to critics including pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was freed in November.

State television announced on Tuesday that more than 6,300 elderly, sick, disabled or well-behaved prisoners would be granted an amnesty from Wednesday “on humanitarian grounds”.

It said freeing detainees would allow them to “help to build a new nation”.

President Thein Sein, a former general and senior junta figure, has surprised critics by signalling a series of political reforms since taking power following a controversial election last November.

He has been applauded by international observers for holding direct talks with Suu Kyi, who spent most of the past two decades locked up by the junta.

In a rare concession to public opinion in the authoritarian nation, the government last month suspended construction of a controversial mega-dam, risking the anger of traditional ally China, which is backing the project.

A top US official, Kurt Campbell, on Monday hailed “dramatic developments” in Myanmar including what he described as “very consequential dialogue” between the Nobel Peace Prize winner and the leadership.

He hinted that concrete moves towards democracy by Myanmar could lead to an easing of sanctions.

“We will match their steps with comparable steps,” he said.

The new regime, which came to power after elections held a few days before Suu Kyi’s release, appears keen to improve its image and in August held the first talks between her and Thein Sein.

Suu Kyi, whose party won 1990 elections but was never allowed to take power, has said she believes Thein Sein genuinely wants to carry out reforms, but cautioned it was too soon to say whether he would succeed. — AFP

“Sometimes we get the feeling perhaps that South Africa, or rather I must be frank and say perhaps South African authorities, do not support the struggle for democracy and human rights as enthusiastically as, for example, individuals like archbishop Desmond Tutu,” Suu Kyi said in a video link interview at the University of Johannesburg.

South Africa has dithered on deciding whether to allow the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader to visit the country for anti-apartheid luminary Tutu’s 80th birthday this week.

The Dalai Lama has paid three visits to South Africa, but in 2009 he was denied a visa, with the government saying it did not want to alienate its biggest trade partner China.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) looked on South Africans “as soulmates, our brothers and sisters who went through the same kind of struggles that we are going through now.”

“But it would be so good if those who have successfully overcome their problems were to remember those who are still struggling to overcome theirs,” she added.

The university will award Suu Kyi an honorary doctorate in absentia on Tuesday for her pro-democracy fight.

Her NLD party won a 1990 election but was never allowed to take power by the then-ruling military junta.

She was released from seven straight years of house arrest last November, shortly after a widely criticised election won by a general who traded his uniform for civilian garb.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela was a staunch supporter of Suu Kyi, but his country’s support for her movement has cooled since his presidency.

In 2007 South Africa, while a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, voted against a US-led resolution urging democratic reform in Myanmar, saying the measure went beyond the council’s mandate. — AFP

Myanmar’s president called Friday to suspend construction of a controversial China-backed hydroelectric dam that would have flooded an area the size of Singapore, marking the latest—and potentially most significant—sign of warming relations between local dissidents and Myanmar’s new civilian government.

The move is also a snub to China, which is widely seen as Myanmar’s most important patron but whose investments in the country are increasingly unpopular.

President Thein Sein said in a note read in Myanmar’s Parliament that the project is against the will of the people. He stated that work at the $3.6 billion Myitsone dam project—affecting the Irrawaddy River in Kachin state—should halt for the duration of his term, at least until 2015. The note amounts to a notice of suspension because of the government’s overwhelming majority in the legislature.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, in a statement posted on the agency’s website Saturday, called on Myanmar to hold consultations to handle any problems with the dam project, the Associated Press reported. The statement notes that the dam is a project both countries agreed to undertake and had been subjected to rigorous review.

The move is the latest in a flurry of government actions in recent weeks that some analysts and residents believe signal major reforms under way in the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation, which languished for decades under harsh military rule.

Late last year, an army-backed civilian government was installed in an election widely decried by Western governments as a sham. Since then, Myanmar’s new leaders have loosened press restrictions, expanded access to the Internet, allowed small-scale public rallies for the first time in many years, and sought outside advice on ways to reform the country’s economy, including possible changes to its foreign-exchange system. That system involves multiple exchange rates, the complexity of which deters foreign investment.

Authorities also have launched a dialogue with dissident and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released late last year after seven years of house arrest. On Friday, she met for a third time with Labor and Social Welfare Minister Aung Kyi, after which she said she welcomed Mr. Thein Sein’s statement on the mammoth Myitsone dam.

“All governments should listen to the voices of the people,” she said, according to the Associated Press.

Dissident groups, nevertheless, are split over the latest changes in Myanmar. Some say the moves may just be cosmetic steps aimed at getting the U.S. and other Western governments to ease economic sanctions imposed since the late 1990s, while enhancing Myanmar’s international standing.

They say Myanmar’s government has flirted with reform in the past, only to reverse course and clamp down hard on dissidents after. There are many other projects in Myanmar—including a controversial energy pipeline to China— that activists say involve human-rights abuses or environmental degradation, and weren’t in Friday’s note.

Either way, the decision to stop construction of the Myitsone dam for now represents a surprising victory for environmentalists in a country where officials have routinely ignored public opinion over the years.

Friday’s announcement is “very welcome news” that will “help sustainably manage the biodiversity of the region,” said U Ohn, vice-chairman of the Forest Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association, a conservation group in Myanmar.

A spokesman for Myanmar’s government said Mr. Thein Sein called for the suspension of the dam project “because he was elected by the people and therefore has to act according to the desire of the people. This is yet again another proof that Myanmar is changing,” said the spokesman, Ye Htut, director general of the Information and Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Information in Myanmar.

Environmental campaigners say Mr. Thein Sein’s decision might in part be directed at outflanking a strengthening green lobby in Myanmar after Ms. Suu Kyi in August joined calls to scrap dam projects designed to provide power to China’s energy-hungry economy.

In other countries in the region, such as Vietnam, political dissidents have flocked to environmental issues as a means of protesting their governments, and the Myitsone plant in Kachin state in northern Myanmar has been a source of vulnerability for Myanmar’s leaders.

There is deep opposition across Myanmar to the project, which was conceived as the largest of several dams along the length of the Irrawaddy River and would submerge key historical sites, including areas many academics consider the cultural birthplace of Myanmar.

Opposition is particularly strong in Kachin communities, where residents view the construction as a way of resettling and containing ethnic Kachin residents while upsetting the area’s fragile ecological balance. Kachin guerilla groups have clashed repeatedly with Myanmar armed forces since June, forcing thousands of refugees toward the border with China. Fighting intensified over the past week, according to dissident media reports.

Ms. Suu Kyi’s opposition to the dam project, meanwhile, complicated the government’s task of winning over popular support in big cities like Yangon and Mandalay, especially as resentment among everyday citizens rises over Chinese investments.

Around 90% of the power generated by the 6,000 megawatt plant was earmarked to go to China, with state-run China Power Investment Corp. earning about 70% of its profits, according to International Rivers, a Berkeley, Calif., advocacy group. The plant was to go online in 2018.

“There’s a lot of Chinese investment in the country, not just in this project but many others and it’s quite unpopular,” said Pianporn Deetes, a Bangkok-based campaigner at International Rivers.

Officials at China Power Investment Corp. couldn’t be reached to comment.

It’s also unclear how other countries will respond to the latest developments in Myanmar. U.S. officials have signaled they don’t intend to ease sanctions unless more significant steps are taken, especially the release of an estimated 2,000 political prisoners. Myanmar officials have said they intend to release more prisoners soon.

Many people in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, said they were modestly hopeful about Mr. Thein Sein’s statement, though some said they doubted the work stoppage would be permanent.

“The president has proved that he actually listens to people’s voices,” said one Yangon-based businessman. But a lawyer working in the city said he thought it was still possible the project would be revived in the future.

Environmental activists say Myanmar must go even further to safeguard against the potential ecological damage of hydropower projects by suspending other projects on the Irrawaddy and elsewhere in Myanmar.

“The authorities need to consider the impact on the central rice-growing parts of the country, and especially the sensitive area around the Irrawaddy delta. These projects have an enormous capacity to disrupt the entire ecology of the country,” said Ms. Pianporn at International Rivers. — The Wall Street Journal