The nation's warp-speed revolution is fragile. Its nascent transition has already been bloody. And much unfinished business remains: from repealing harsh laws that helped silence a generation of pro-democracy dissidents, to overhauling a political power structure still tipped heavily in favor of army rule.
"If President Obama doesn't put his full weight behind further urgent reforms in Myanmar, this trip risks being an ill-timed presidential pat on the back for a regime that has looked the other way as violence rages, destroying villages and communities just in the last few weeks," said Suzanne Nossel, the U.S.-based director of Amnesty International.
White House officials cautioned Thursday that Obama's visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, should not be viewed as a "victory celebration." They reiterated that urgent action is still needed, particularly on freeing political prisoners and ending the unrest in western Rakhine state.
"This is a moment when we believe the Burmese leaders have put their feet on the right path and that it's critical to us that we not miss the moment to influence them to keep going," said Danny Russel, Obama's top Asia adviser.
There is little doubt that the reforms in Myanmar have come quicker and gone farther than anyone here dared dream.
Just a few years ago, this was a place denigrated by Washington as an isolated "outpost of tyranny," a country led by a xenophobic clique of army officers so distrustful of the West that they rejected foreign aid even when Cyclone Nargis killed more than 100,000 people in 2008.
Even when the junta ceded power to an elected government early last year, few considered the prospect of real change. The vote, boycotted by the main opposition, was considered neither free nor fair, and the new president, Thein Sein, was a former general.
But Thein Sein's government surprised the world. It freed hundreds of political prisoners, though not all of them. It signed cease-fire deals with numerous rebel groups. It abolished a draconian system of media censorship. It revamped finance and investment laws. Aung San Suu Kyi — the longtime opposition leader who spent most of the last two decades as a prisoner in her own home — is now an elected lawmaker with an official voice in government.
Today, the consensus is the reforms are irreversible. But that doesn't mean "the future is necessarily bright," said Myanmar historian Thant Myint-U, the grandson of the late U.N. Secretary General U Thant.
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