18 November was a big day for Burma watchers, at least for those in favour of detente with the regime. On that day, President Barack Obama, apparently deciding to give the Burmese government the benefit of the doubt with regard to its 'reforms' process, called democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from Air Force One as he was on his way to Bali, Indonesia, to attend the annual ASEAN Summit. They talked for 20 minutes, with Suu Kyi reportedly inquiring about the president's entire family, even his dog, Bo. Soon after, President Obama announced that he would send his secretary of state, Hilary Clinton to Burma on 1 December, to test whether the validity of the new reforms put in place by the government. It is yet unclear whether Clinton will be able to see the political prisoners still in jail, especially the 2007 'Saffron Revolution' leader U Gambira and Min Ko Naing, the political activist made famous during the 1988 uprisings.
Since November 2009, the United States has been pursuing a twin-pronged approach with respect to Burma, on the one hand keeping sanctions in place and on the other trying a more direct approach of face-to-face talks with Suu Kyi, encouraging the government to talk meaningfully with her and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. After a 'pilgrimage' that Suu Kyi and her son made to the ancient city of Bagan in central Burma this spring, things moved quickly, with the Nobel laureate attending a workshop on economics in Naypyidaw, the new capital city. As Himal goes to press, she has talked to the government's official liaison on four occasions.
It was also on 18 November, a Friday, that ASEAN announced that it would accept Burma as chair of the regional bloc starting in 2014, a key victory for the regime. The same day, Suu Kyi announced that the NLD would re-register, reversing the official ban on the party put in place in the run-up to the November 2010 election; Suu Kyi herself would also be standing for by-elections slated for December. The news did not stop there: Three days later, the following Monday, representatives of five armed ethnic groups met in Naypyidaw with the minister of railways, Aung Min, acting as President Thein Sein's representative. At that meeting, two groups, the Karen National Union and the Shan State Army, agreed to informal ceasefires.
This flurry of activity capped months of changes in Burma – changes that remain highly debated. Commentators, representatives of the US State Department and even The Irrawaddy magazine, based in Thailand, have been seeing signs of true reform in Burma. These observers have particularly latched onto such recent events as the suspension of construction on the Chinese-backed Myitsone dam, in northern Burma, ostensibly 'in response to the people's wishes', according to President (and former General) Thein Sein; Aung San Suu Kyi's visit to Naypyidaw; the release of 208 political prisoners; and the appearance of portraits of Aung San – national hero, father of the nation and of Suu Kyi – on the wall of an official meeting room in Naypyidaw. Yet in order to properly address the true reach of these changes, we need to go back farther than the past few months: We need to examine what has really changed, in contrast to what we would like to see in Burma as advocates of democracy and an open market economy.