BURMA: AUNG SAN SUU KYI'S VIEWS

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 001165 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT FOR EAP/MLS, DRL, AND IO PACOM FOR FPA E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/28/2017 TAGS: PGOV PREL BM SUBJECT: BURMA: AUNG SAN SUU KYI'S VIEWS REF: A. RANGOON 1164 ¶B. RANGOON 1100 ¶C. RANGOON 1094 RANGOON 00001165 001.2 OF 003 Classified By: CDA Shari Villarosa for Reasons 1.4 (b) & (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Charge met with Dr. Tin Myo Win, aka Douglas, on December 6 to discuss his recent meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK). ASSK appears less optimistic now than previous statements by NLD members have indicated about the quality of the dialogue to date, according to Douglas. January 4, Burma's independence day, is the deadline ASSK has in mind to determine whether or not the dialogue is genuine. Charge took the opportunity to brief Douglas to pass along to ASSK regarding our efforts to keep the issue of Burma in the news, upcoming events that will put more scrutiny on Burma, our efforts to give the regime a face by naming Than Shwe and Maung Aye as the obstacles, and Charge's request to see her to hear directly ASSK's views of the dialogue to date. Douglas said ASSK is very appreciative of all our efforts and relayed her requests for readouts on UNSC discussions of Burma, a compendium of recent developments, and an IT dictionary (see action request in para 3). End Summary ¶2. (C) Douglas was allowed to meet with ASSK three times during the month of November after having no access for three months (Ref C). He expects to be allowed to meet her again around December 20. He treated her for an infected finger earlier in November and then requested follow-up meetings to ensure her finger was healing well. This also gives ASSK the opportunity to both receive more information from the outside and relay information and requests. Douglas described her generally to be in very good health, physically and mentally. He said he also regularly gives readouts to the Italian and French Ambassadors about his meetings with ASSK. ¶3. (C) Charge passed to Douglas some dictionaries that ASSK had requested and asked what else we could supply. Douglas requested readouts of UNSC discussions and a compendium of recent developments in politics, the arts, culture, etc. He said if this was put on a flash drive or drives he could get them into to her. In addition, he said she had requested an "IT dictionary," admitting he did not understand what she meant. Charge suggested that she probably wanted to become more familiar with recent information technology developments. ACTION REQUESTED: Most of the UNSC readouts have been unclassified, so request authorization for post to compile the reporting of recent discussions to pass to ASSK. In addition, we would welcome additional information contained in classified reporting that we could also pass to her. Post will locate a dictionary and compendium to pass along to her as well. End Action Request. The Dialogue -------------- ¶4. (C) Aung San Suu Kyi, according to Douglas, was surprised that the NLD participants in the meetings reported so favorably after their meetings with her. (Ref B) She also recognizes that the NLD Central Executive Committee (aka the Uncles) are trying to control her messages to keep themselves in control. Douglas said that ASSK wants the two NLD press spokesmen, NyanWin and Myint Thein, to be her primary liaisons. Unfortunately, she had not been allowed any furher meetings with them and does not know when anoter will be scheduled. She had requested that her number two, also under house arrest, U Tin Oo, also be included in any meetings. ¶5. (C) Charge pointed out that the Monday press conference (Ref A) revealed that the regime recognized the split between the uncles and younger NLD members, and they would likely pursue their usual "divide and rule" tactics to weaken NLD. Charge said that while everyone agreed that ASSK and the other political prisoners should be released, as interim steps, the U.S. and the Europeans were insisting that ASSK be allowed to speak out directly and be allowed to consult with a wider group of advisors. Douglas replied that enabling her RANGOON 00001165 002.2 OF 003 to speak out directly would enable her to get around the Uncles and to clarify her thinking to avoid the distortions that the regime had tried with her statement released through Gambari. ¶6. (C) Aung Kyi appears to have fallen in ASSK's opinion, according to Douglas. Earlier he had reported to us that she was very favorably impressed with Aung Kyi. Now Douglas described him as a failed military officer, forced to retire at a young age, and only selected because he had a good reputation with the UN. Aung Kyi had claimed to ASSK that he had no authority, but could only report to his unnamed superiors. ASSK told Douglas that Aung Kyi was only concerned with "what and how," and not interested in timeframes. Aung Kyi had indicated that the Than Shwe regime is determined to speed up the roadmap to complete elections by the end of 2008, and that he has only offered NLD and ASSK rights to participate in the elections. This tracks with what the Chinese Ambassador separately reported to the Charge: ASSK would be allowed to campaign in the elections and, if she won, would be allowed to take a seat. The Chinese Ambassador added that she seemed skeptical. The regime already failed to deliver on the 1990 election results, retorted Charge, so why shouldn't she be skeptical. Aung Kyi has told ASSK that he cannot bring the ethnic leaders into the political dialogue, according to Douglas, which again corroborates the Chinese Ambassador's report that Than Shwe believes the ethnics accepted the roadmap by their participation in the National Convention. ¶7. (C) Aung Kyi has met with ASSK three times with another meeting expected shortly. Douglas said this might be the last meeting if ASSK is unable to make any more progress. She would like to make a joint statement if satisfactory progress were made. If there were nothing by January 4, Burma's independence day, then it would be clear that there was no genuine dialogue, according to Douglas. Charge said the U.S. already had its doubts about the dialogue and would be willing to go public about the failure when ASSK approved. Douglas indicated that she would have no problem with a U.S. statement if January 4 came without a joint statement. He promised to relay this message to her when they next met. Charge reported that she had requested a meeting with ASSK to learn firsthand about the state of the dialogue since she had been told that Aung Kyi was too busy. Douglas replied this was a good tactic, and the regime might surprise everyone to permit the meeting. Charge cautioned against getting his hopes up noting that we no longer get even routine visas approved. ¶8. (C) Douglas asked what we knew about the plans for another Gambari visit. Charge replied that he originally planned to come in early December, then sometime in December, and most recently indicated it might be January. Since most likely this would come after January 4, Charge asked if ASSK would prefer to talk with Gambari before any statements pronouncing the political dialogue a failure. She warned that pronouncing the dialogue a failure might mean that Gambari could not make any more visits. Douglas promised to consult with ASSK during his next meeting and get back to Charge. Messages for ASSK -------------- ¶9. (C) Charge asked if ASSK was contemplating rejecting sanctions, if she were able to negotiate a satisfactory joint statement, as we had heard earlier. Douglas replied that she understood that she had no authority to lift sanctions and would not advocate their removal without considerable progress towards political reform. Charge reported that the visa sanctions seemed to matter most to the military since they complained to us most often about them, not so much for themselves, but for their family members. Charge said if the generals hear about sanctions at home from their children, they must be having an impact. In addition, she had heard that the recent targeted sanctions had mobilized the business community to travel to Nay Pyi Taw to plead for changes. We RANGOON 00001165 003.2 OF 003 also had made clear to the Chinese that the sanctions would remain in place until we saw significant progress. With complaints about sanctions coming from a variety of sources now, we hoped to get the attention of more open-minded generals. ¶10. (C) Charge described our efforts to give the regime a face by naming Than Shwe and Maung Aye as the main obstacles to reform. She noted that we had heard that both backed the harsh crackdown against the peaceful demonstrators in September and that we had heard that discomfort with the hardline approach was on the rise in military ranks. Douglas expressed approval of the idea of naming names, noting that neither appeared interested in real reform. He had heard through his sources that the SPDC ruling junta vote on the crackdown was 7 to 3 with 2 members absent. He concluded that this showed the hardliners clearly in control, but with some differences of opinion. He added that most of the recent promotions among the generals were people seen as closer to Maung Aye. ¶11. (C) Charge explained the ways that the USG was trying to keep public attention on Burma. She noted that the UN would be discussing the issue of child soldiers December 6 and that Pinheiro would report on his visit to Burma on December 11. Both these occasions offered opportunities to speak out against the continuing abuses. Charge added that we were continuing to speak out about the continuing arrests which undermined any claim that Than Shwe was truly interested in dialogue, since these were the same people that he should be speaking to. Douglas reported that based on his recent discussions with family members, the 88 Generation Students are in good condition, including the four leaders who remain in hiding. ¶12. (C) Comment: Since we cannot talk to ASSK directly we must rely on secondhand information, which inevitably gets distorted as it is relayed. However, Douglas is loyal to ASSK, so any variations from her actual thoughts should not be considered malicious. It does highlight the importance of ASSK being allowed to speak for herself directly rather than through intermediaries. Since Douglas was one of those earlier offering more optimistic assessments of the ASSK and Aung Kyi meetings, it appears now that reality has brought everyone back to earth. Subsequent to the early November meetings between ASSK, Aung Kyi, and the NLD uncles, the Than Shwe regime has done nothing to indicate interest in a genuine dialogue. It ginned up criticism of ASSK's thoughtful statement to try to divide ASSK from the ethnics; it has refused to open discussions to include the ethnics, the 88 Generation Students, and the monks; it has continued arresting anyone who advocates political reform; it has failed to give ASSK any more access to information or advice so that she could effectively participate in a genuine dialogue; and it held a press conference to announce its plans to move forward on the roadmap without any changes. Everything instead indicates that Than Shwe intends to move forward with or without ASSK's participation. However, he has failed to realize that his evident disdain for genuine dialogue has lost him international support. We have long criticized the roadmap as a sham, and now other countries are coming around to our view. While it may still be difficult to persuade countries to ratchet up the pressure on Than Shwe, they will be less inclined to bless the roadmap. VILLAROSA