Secretary Clinton and President Obama in Myanmar

Earlier today, Secretary Clinton accompanied President Obama on an historic visit to Myanmar.  It was the first visit by an American President to that country.  Nearly a year ago, Secretary Clinton made the first visit there by a U.S. Secretary of State in more than 50 years. 

Here are some pictures from today. They visited the home of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the President gave a speech at the University of Yangon.

Hillary Clinton With Burmese President Thein Sein

Remarks With Burmese President Thein Sein Before Their Meeting

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Waldorf Astoria Hotel

New York City

September 26, 2012

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PRESIDENT THEIN SEIN: (Via interpreter) (Inaudible) ambassador to the United States (inaudible). I believe that our subsequent meetings have contributed a lot to the strengthening health of our bilateral relations between Myanmar and the United States. And on behalf of the people of Myanmar, we would like to extend our gratitude to Madam Secretary, who has opened a new chapter in our bilateral relations. The improvement of our bilateral relations, we can see that for instance, we now we have the – our diplomatic relations have been at the ambassadorial level.
And the people of Myanmar are very pleased that – on the news of easing of economic sanctions by the United States and we are grateful for the action by the United States. The democratic reform path that we have (inaudible). We still need to continue our path on democratic reforms, but with the recognition and the support from the champion of democracy like the United States, it has been an encouragement for us to continue our chosen path. And I would like to take this opportunity to express my cordial greeting to the President Obama and my best wishes for election campaign. I would personally like to (inaudible) to President Obama.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, Mr. President, it’s wonderful to see you again, as you say, for our third meeting. I believe we have had productive discussions in Nay Pyi Taw and in Siem Reap, and I look forward to such a discussion here in New York. We have watched as you and your government have continued the steady process of reform, and we’ve been pleased to respond with specific steps that recognize the government’s efforts and encourage further reform.
And in recognition of the continued progress toward reform and in response to requests from both the government and the opposition, the United States is taking the next step in normalizing our commercial relationship. We will begin the process of easing restrictions on imports of Burmese goods into the United States. We hope this will provide more opportunities for your people to sell their goods into our market. As we do so, we will continue consulting with Congress and other relevant stakeholders about additional steps, while at the same time working with you and supporting those who are hoping that the reform will be permanent and progress will be continuing.
We recognize, Mr. President, that you are doing many things at once – political reform, moving toward a democratic change; economic reform, moving toward greater connection of your country with the global economy; working to end ethnic conflicts as you move toward peace and stability for your country.
So I look forward to our discussion today, Mr. President. Thank you.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is handed an envelope from Myanmar's President Thein Sein as they meet in New York Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2012. Clinton said Wednesday the U.S. will ease its import ban on Myanmar that had been a key plank of remaining American economic sanctions. (AP Photo/Craig

Secretary Clinton at "The Lady" Screening

Remarks at "The Lady" Film Screening

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Motion Picture Association of America

Washington, DC

April 9, 2012

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Well, thank you all very much. And you are in for such a treat. This is a terrific movie, one that I had the great privilege of watching on my way to Burma.
And I particularly would like to thank the director for that honor, and also it’s wonderful to see Michelle here as well. So I am thrilled to look out and see so many people who care deeply about this issue. And I came in as Derek Mitchell and Melanne Verveer were finishing up their remarks.
But as Michael just said, movies have such a powerful voice in our culture, in every culture. And it is both exciting and profoundly moving that filmmakers use it to do more than just entertain, although entertainment is a very important part of the human experience. But the kind of educational and inspirational mission that Michael referred to is very important in today’s world, and this film portrays a woman whose story needs to be in theaters and living rooms across the world.
I want to thank Chris Dodd for sponsoring the showing here tonight. And I just really wanted to come by to underscore how important this moment in the history of Aung San Suu Kyi and Burma happen to be. The personal side of Suu Kyi’s story that you will see tonight is one that is so moving when you look at what she gave up, the difficult decisions and sacrifices that she made for her country on behalf of freedom with the hope of democracy.
And it is certainly the case that whoever meets her knows how famous she is, how iconic she is. But what you come away with is how human, down-to-earth, personally engaged she happens to be in everything she’s doing, which makes her story even more painful. Because having met my share of famous people over a long period of time now, there are some who get so caught up in their cause and their mission that you do get the sense that, for them, the human relationships, the one-to-one personal connections with family and friends and colleagues have been totally subordinated to the larger mission. To a great extent, that is necessary, especially in the circumstances in which she found herself. But watching her interact with the people around her, the people who took care of her, the people who were there with her through all her years of house arrest and struggle, makes you know that this is someone who was very well aware of the pain and the sacrifice that she was undertaking.
Now, just a few days ago, we joined the world in celebrating her election. I did tell her in one of our recent telephone conversations she was moving from an icon to a politician. (Laughter.) Having made sort of the same journey to some extent, I know that that’s not easy because now you go to a parliament and you start compromising, which is what democracy is all about. It is not a dirty word. You cannot expect to have one person or one party – one leader – be the repository of everything that is true. And so you have to work with other people, some of whom you disagree with deeply. (Laughter.) But it is part of the commitment you make to a democratic process, even one as fragile as that being embraced by the leadership and the people of Burma.
As they grapple with transitioning from authoritarian military rule to a more open political and economic system, there are going to be a lot of difficult days ahead. President Thein Sein and his government have taken courageous steps. They’ve made this progress possible in many ways. They’ve helped to launch their country on this historic new path. But there is still a lot to be done.
I see Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell, with whom I’ve worked closely on this whole process and project almost from the beginning of our time in the Obama Administration. And we will continue to press for all political prisoners to be released, for those already released to be given unconditional freedom. We will continue to work to end in a just way the ongoing ethnic conflicts.
We have told the government there that we will match action for action as they take steps. And last week, I outlined a number of the action steps the United States is prepared to take, including sending an accredited ambassador, reestablishing a USAID mission, enabling private organizations to engage in a broader range of non-profit activity supporting the people, beginning a targeted process of easing the ban on exporting U.S. financial services and restrictions on investment and travel.
It is something that we enter into with our eyes very wide open but with our hearts very hopeful. And certainly, we are guided by the partnership that we have with democrats, including most famously, Aung San Suu Kyi.
So tonight is an opportunity to celebrate this extraordinary woman’s struggle to bring democracy to her people. And we should also remember – and you’ll see some images in the movie of the many heroes in the pro-democracy movement who have sacrificed their freedom and even their very lives. There are hundreds and thousands of people working alongside Aung San Suu Kyi inside Burma and around the world, including in this room as I look at some of the faces who have been stalwart supporters and activists of behalf of a better, more democratic, peaceful future for the people of Burma.
So this film honors them as well. And after decades of war and turmoil, we do look with hope – realistic but nevertheless hopeful aspirations – for what can happen. So again, I want to thank Luc Besson and Michelle Yeoh and everyone associated with this film. And I personally want to thank you for going to so much effort to get it to me so that I could watch it as I was traveling to actually meet the real person. And it was a very moving experience for me, and I think it will be for all of you. So thank you very much. (Applause.)

Video: Secretary Clinton's Remarks on Burma

Recognizing and Supporting Burma's Democratic Reforms

Remarks

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Treaty Room

Washington, DC

April 4, 2012

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From the beginning of this Administration, we have pursued a policy of engagement to support human rights and reform in Burma. We knew that the challenges were great, but we also believed that a new approach was needed to support the aspirations of the people. And this week, the government and the people made further progress in advancing those aspirations.
The results of the April 1^st parliamentary by-elections represents a dramatic demonstration of popular will that brings a new generation of reformers into government. This is an important step in the country’s transformation, which in recent months has seen the unprecedented release of political prisoners, new legislation broadening the rights of political and civic association, and fledgling process in internal dialogue between the government and ethnic minority groups.
These elections and the progress that we have seen are precisely the kind of step that the President and I envisioned when we embarked on this historic opening. President Thein Sein and many of his colleagues inside the government helped launch their country on a historic new path. And while there is much to be done and significant tests lie ahead, we applaud the president and his colleagues for their leadership and courage, and we congratulate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for her election to the parliament as well as the election of many of her colleagues.
The United States is committed to taking steps alongside the Burmese Government and people as they move down the road of reform and development. In light of the by-election and the other progress of recent months, we are consulting actively with the Congress as well as our allies and friends in Europe and Asia on our response to these recent developments. We are prepared to take steps toward: first, seeking agrement for a fully accredited ambassador in Rangoon in the coming days, followed by a formal announcement of our nominee; second, establishing an in-country USAID mission and supporting a normal country program for the United Nations Development Program; third, enabling private organizations in the United States to pursue a broad range of nonprofit activities from democracy building to health and education; fourth, facilitating travel to the United States for select government officials and parliamentarians; and fifth, beginning the process of a targeted easing of our ban on the export of U.S. financial services and investment as part of a broader effort to help accelerate economic modernization and political reform. Sanctions and prohibitions will stay in place on individuals and institutions that remain on the wrong side of these historic reform efforts.
Now, this reform process has a long way to go. The future is neither clear nor certain. But we will continue to monitor developments closely and meet, as I said when I was there, action with action. We will continue to seek improvements in human rights, including the unconditional release of all remaining political prisoners and the lifting of conditions on all those who have been released. We will continue our support for the development of a vibrant civil society, which we think will greatly add to the reform of the economy and society. We will continue to urge progress in national reconciliation, specifically with ethnic minority groups. And we will continue to press for the verifiable termination of the military relationship with North Korea.
Yet even as we urge these further steps, we fully recognize and embrace the progress that has taken place, and we will continue our policy of engagement that has encouraged these efforts. The leadership has shown real understanding and commitment to the future of their country. That development, we hope, will be sustainable and produce even more results.
As we have done over the last several months, the United States will stand with the reformers and the democrats, both inside the government and in the larger civil society, as they work together for that more hopeful future that is the right of every single person.
Thank you all very much.

Hillary in Burma: New Pics

These pictures are from the State Department and show some events we have not seen previously. We see Mme. Secretary meeting with ethnic minorities, civil society leaders, and the Burmese press as well as some new images from her meetings with President Thein Sein and members of parliament. The government pictures were taken at the new capital Nay Pyi Taw. She then boarded her plane and flew to the old capital, Rangoon (now named Yangon) to visit the golden pagoda and meet Aung San Suu Kyi and the civil and ethnic groups.

Video: Hillary Clinton in Yangon With Kristin Welker on NBC Nightly News

Some footage of her meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi at her home as well as a short interview here.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Interview With Kristen Welker of NBC

Interview

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State

Rangoon, Burma

December 2, 2011

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QUESTION: Madam Secretary, thank you so much for doing this interview.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Happy to talk to you.
QUESTION: Thank you. What do you think is the most significant development that came out of your meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I think it was an important meeting for both substantive and symbolic reasons. Obviously, I was thrilled to finally meet her. She felt like an old friend that I was seeing again after some long absence. But it was personally incredibly important to me, but it was also substantively important, because we have worked with her closely over the last months to make sure that we understood what she thought was happening inside the country, that our policy was aligned with that, along with many other people inside with whom we’ve had constant interactions over the past two-plus years. So it was gratifying that she fully endorsed our engagement efforts and that she wants American support for the reformers. She thinks that’s an important message to send. So that was a critical conclusion that came from both my private discussions and then her public comments.
QUESTION: What do you think she means to the people here in this country and to United States efforts to try to help bring about reform here?
SECRETARY CLINTON: I think that she’s so deeply admired and loved here that people who care about the future, who know that Burma could be so much more, it could place – it could take its place in the world in the 21^st century instead of being left behind, as it has been for the last years. I think she is so admired because of her steadfast dignity and determination and the fact that she stands on her own for democracy, for freedom and justice. And then because of the connection with her father, who was the liberator, who achieved independence for Burma, there’s a sense of continuity and what might have been and what still could be. So in so many ways, when I talk with people who are in the opposition, of course, in her party and elsewhere, in civil society, the ethnic nationalities, her name comes up all the time because people see her as their leader on behalf of a better Burma.
QUESTION: President Obama has recently said that his foreign policy focus is shifting away from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to the Asia Pacific region. How much of this trip is also aimed at sending a message to China that the United States can serve as a counterweight in this region?
SECRETARY CLINTON: This trip is not about anything other than the potential for American engagement to support the reformers inside of the country. And we have no concerns about Burma having good relations with China. They share a long border; it’s a big neighbor that you have to figure out how to get along with. That is not anything that we have an interest in or an objection to.
I think what President Obama was saying is that, given our history, we have been a Pacific power, a resident power. We liberated the Pacific. We worked to help the South Koreans withstand the brutal assault from the North. We have been in this region. But certainly over the last 10 years, because of our preoccupations with Iraq, with Afghanistan, there were doubts in the region that maybe we were no longer going to be paying attention, that we weren’t going to play the role that historically we have played. And it was important for us to clearly, unequivocally, state we are and we will be, far, far into the future, a Pacific power.
QUESTION: Do you worry that if the officials here, if the government here doesn’t start to enact the type of reforms that they have said they will, this will ultimately become a foreign policy blemish, this trip?
SECRETARY CLINTON: No, I don’t, because, first of all, we have followed the lead of the people that are at the forefront of the struggle for democracy here. And I don't see how we could have said, “Well, you’re on your own. Yes, we hear you, but we’re not responding.” That’s not a way a responsible nation such as ours acts. And ultimately, it is not the Americans’ decision. It is the decision of the leadership of this current government. The test is really theirs, and we’re going to do everything we can to encourage them to make the right decisions, but ultimately they have to bear the praise or the condemnation. And our goal is to assist those who are trying to be reformers within the government and those on the outside who have so long believed in a democratic future.
QUESTION: I just want to do a quick international wraparound. Pakistan – what is your concern right now in terms of the relationship between the United States and Pakistan given what happened there? Are you concerned that it will further harm a very complicated relationship already?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, it’s a terrible, tragic incident that we deeply regret and have communicated that to every level of the Government in Pakistan. The fact is we have some similar interests in making sure that extremism is pushed back, that the threats to Pakistanis, the threats across the border in Afghanistan, the threats to our troops, and even the threats beyond the borders, because of the safe havens for extremists, are dealt with. And I don’t think that changes because we have a problem arising from what everyone admits was a deeply tragic incident.
QUESTION: And just quickly, two more quick questions. Iran – you condemned what happened there. Is the United States thinking about taking any punitive measures against Iran at this point?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, we’ve announced additional sanctions, as the EU has as well. And we’re going to continue to keep as much of an international coalition to condemn Iran and sanction Iran as we can. Because remember, if it’s just the United States and Europe, that is not sufficient. What was very significant about what we achieved early in the Administration was to get China and Russia to sign on to sanctions. China is very reliant on Iranian gas and oil. I think we are going to do everything possible to tighten the screws on the Iranian regime, because their provocative actions – whether it’s attacking the Embassy of the United Kingdom or trying to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador – are deeply troubling to us.
QUESTION: Finally, as we cap off this historic week, I wonder if you could reflect a bit on your own unique path. As you look back at everything that you have done, what do you think at this point is your greatest achievement?
SECRETARY CLINTON: Oh, I don’t think like that. I have to confess I live – I try to live in the moment because there is so much that is going on every second. And this trip here to test the democratic movement and see whether it’s real or not is such a great privilege for me to represent my country and to try to do what we possibly can to make this reform real. We’re just going to get up every day and go to bat and try to advance America’s interests and values, and sometimes we get on base, sometimes we even hit a home run, sometimes we strike out. (Laughter.) So it’s a kind of daily challenge that I’m just trying to manage, and maybe when I’m finished with the job, I’ll look back and be able to answer your question.
QUESTION: I think I’m getting (inaudible).
SECRETARY CLINTON: (Laughter.)
QUESTION: Thank you so much.
SECRETARY CLINTON: Thank you. Great to talk to you.

Pics from Burma: Hillary Meets Aung Sang Suu Kyi ... and more!

Mme. Secretary's day in Burma was a flurry of activity. Long awaited, her meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi took place at the residence of the U.S. Chief of Mission in  Yangon. She also toured the centuries-old Shwedagon Pagoda there where she poured water on a statue of Buddha, a ritual meant to make one feel good,  placed flowers before another statue of Buddha,  and  rang an enormous bell for good luck.  In the capital, Nay Pyi Taw,  she met President Thein Sein and his wife Khin Khin Win as well as members of parliament, one of whom appears to have bowed to her quite deeply

Hillary To Visit Myanmar

This is probably news to no one here by now, but here it is for the record from the Foreign Policy report.
 

Clinton to visit Burma next month

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Top news: Hillary Clinton will visit Burma next month, the first visit by a U.S. Secretary of State in more than 50 years. The announcement by President Barack Obama followed democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi announcement that she would run for parliament in this year's elections.
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Video: Scretary Clinton's Remarks on Engagement with Burma