Burma has taken significant steps in recent years but still a great deal of work is required before it fully transitions to democracy, a top White House official has said.
"In the early years of this new century, we must help consolidate and expand democracy across Asia to enable more and more people to participate fully in the political life of their countries. The rapid change we've seen in Burma in just the past two years is a portent of the possible," the National Security Adviser Susan Rice said yesterday.
"Not unlike North Korea, Burma was a pariah state ruled by a military junta and responsible for egregious violations of human rights," Rice said in her address on 'America's Future in Asia' at prestigious Georgetown University.
"When President Obama took office, Aung San Suu Kyi was in her 14th year of house arrest, and hundreds of Burmese citizens were imprisoned merely for exercising their right of free speech. Burma's leaders faced enormous economic pressure and intense international isolation until they chose another path," said the top Obama aide.
"Over the last several years, we've worked closely with both (the Burmese) President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi and with the government and people of Burma as they've made historic changes. Today, more than a thousand political prisoners have been released, and we're helping Burma build a credible electoral infrastructure ahead of its 2015 national elections," she said.
"We're supporting a process of constitutional reform and national reconciliation. As Burma moves towards greater openness and change, we are easing sanctions while encouraging responsible investment and robust support for the people and civil society activists who suffered so long under the iron fist of dictatorship," she said.
"There's still a great deal of work ahead before Burma fully transitions to democracy," Rice said as she listed out the challenges being faced by this South East Asian nation.
"The challenge of overcoming ethnic tensions and violence and of protecting vulnerable minorities, like the Rohingya, will require persistent vigilance. But if progress continues, by the end of President Obama's second term, we hope to have helped Burma re-establish itself as a regional leader and as a thriving, if nascent, prosperous democracy," Rice added.
