Sen James Webb thanked the Burmese icon for defending democracy, won a pardon and freedom for the American linked to her latest detention (inset), and talked with reclusive military ruler Than Shwe. (AFP Photo)
- Published: 16/08/2009 at 04:50 AM
Rangoon (AFP) - US Senator Jim Webb met Burmese military ruler Than Shwe and democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday after securing the release of the US citizen jailed for visiting Suu Kyi's house in May.
John Yettaw, bound for Bangkok Sunday afternoon.
Webb, a Democrat with close links to US President Barack Obama, became the first official US visitor to hold talks with the reclusive Than Shwe, encountering the regime's supremo in his bunker-like capital, Naypyidaw, officials said.
Webb then flew to Rangoon to meet Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi at a government guesthouse near her home - her first meeting with a foreign official since her house arrest was extended by 18 months earlier this week.
Webb's office later issued a statement in Washington saying he had secured an agreement from the junta to release John Yettaw, who was jailed for seven years this week over an incident in which he swam to Suu Kyi's lakeside home.
"I am grateful to the Myanmar government," Webb was quoted as saying, using the military dictatorship's name for Burma..
"It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying a foundation of goodwill and confidence-building in the future," Webb said.
The statement said Yettaw would be officially deported Sunday morning, adding that "Senator Webb will bring him out of the country on a military aircraft that is returning to Bangkok on Sunday afternoon."
A Burmese official confirmed Yettaw's deportation.
"Yettaw will be deported and leave with Webb," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Webb had also urged the Burmese military regime to free Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last two decades under house arrest, the senator's office said.
She was driven to the meeting with Webb from her crumbling mansion in a convoy comprising her car and several police vehicles, witnesses said. She left the guesthouse about 45 minutes later.
The Burmese regime sparked international outrage when a court in the army-ruled nation convicted Yettaw and Suu Kyi over the May incident in which the American swam uninvited to her home.
According to earlier reports, Webb was not due to meet Yettaw, a diabetic and epileptic former military veteran who is being held at Rangoon's notorious Insein Prison. Yettaw was hospitalised earlier this month after suffering a series of fits.
Dissident groups have warned that Webb's visit could be manipulated by the Burmese government to "endorse" its treatment of Suu Kyi and the more than 2,100 other political prisoners in the country's jails.
The UN Security Council issued a watered-down statement Thursday expressing "serious concern" about her detention, while the European Union the same day extended sanctions against the junta, including the judges in the trial.
Critics have accused the junta of trumping up the charges to keep Suu Kyi locked up during elections next year, and of using the polls themselves to legitimise their grip on power since 1962.
The junta refused to recognise the NLD's victory in elections in 1990.
Both the White House and State Department welcomed Webb's trip, even though it was officially being made in a private capacity by the senator, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs.
The Obama administration said earlier this year that it was reviewing his predecessor George W Bush's tough stance on Burma, even though Obama recently renewed sanctions against the regime.
Webb, a gruff Vietnam veteran, said in April that Washington should seek "constructive" engagement towards Burma with the aim of lifting sanctions, while admitting in July that the Suu Kyi trial made it more difficult.
Webb, 63, has written six novels and served in the late 1980s as secretary of the US Navy under Republican President Ronald Reagan.
Than Shwe has, meanwhile, been a long-term bete noire of the United States. A former postman, he has ruled Burma since 1992 with an iron-fist, ruthlessly suppressing his rivals.
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