President meets Myanmar opposition icon after release

NAYPYITAW, Myanmar (AP):

When President Barack Obama meets with Myanmar's opposition icon, Aung San Suu Kyi tomorrow, he will encounter a figure in the midst of an evolution he finds familiar: the shift from history-making trailblazer to established politician.

Four years after being released from house arrest, Suu Kyi is now a member of Myanmar's Parliament and has been pushing for changes to a constitutional provision that is blocking her path to the presidency. While the 69-year-old Suu Kyi remains beloved by many in this long-isolated Southeast Asian nation, however, she's come under criticism for failing to take a tougher line against the country's former military leaders and for staying largely silent about the abuse of Muslim minorities that could jeopardize Myanmar's fitful move toward democracy.

"Mahatma Gandhi unequivocally denounced all forms of intolerance and so did Nelson Mandela," Jody Williams, a Nobel Prize-winning American human-rights activist, said of two figures with whom Suu Kyi is often compared. "If she wants to lead the country, help it develop, she has to do the same."

political motivations

Rights activists have suggested that Suu Kyi's caution reflects her fears of alienating military lawmakers who still control a quarter of the seats in Parliament. Obama administration officials agree that some of her decisions appear to be driven by political motivations, particularly her reluctance to address the plight of the Rohingya Muslims, who are deeply disdained by most people in Myanmar.

Obama and Suu Kyi met briefly Thursday on the sidelines of a regional summit in Naypyitaw, the capital city that Myanmar's former military leaders secretly built in the middle of the jungle in the early 2000s. The city has the lush hotels and impressive public buildings of a modern capital, but its vast empty spaces and eerily empty multilane highways have led to its reputation as something of a ghost town.

Tomorrow, Obama flies to the city of Yangon to hold more substantial talks with Suu Kyi at the lakeside home where she spent much of her confinement.

The U.S. president has often spoken of his admiration for her, heralding the "unbreakable courage and determination" of his fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate during his first trip to Myanmar in 2012. The White House has also gone out of its way to promote Suu Kyi in its overtures to Myanmar, with Obama notably holding his news conference on this trip with the opposition leader, not the country's president, Thein Sein.