Rev. Danny Fisher

In an editorial appearing in today’s Washington Post, Archbishop Desmond Tutu writes about “what Burma needs from the White House.” Here’s the choicest snippet:

As the administration reviews its policy, I hope it will remember that the voices of those with the most at stake cannot easily be heard. My sister Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the heroic and beloved leader of the Burmese democracy movement, remains under house arrest and cannot speak to the world. In recent months, hundreds of prominent activists, Buddhist monks and nuns, journalists, labor activists, and bloggers who want the world to maintain pressure on their government have been sentenced to years, even decades, in isolated jungle prisons, where not even their families can visit. Meanwhile, those who support or have resigned themselves to their government’s approach are free to speak out. This repression cannot be rewarded; the voices of those it has silenced must be heard as if the walls of their jails did not exist.

I hope that the Obama administration will energize global diplomacy on Burma. It should be willing to talk to Burma’s leaders, to work intensively with Burma’s neighbors and to make clear that there is a dignified way forward for all those in Burma who are willing to compromise. It should support carefully monitored humanitarian assistance directed to help Burma’s people, so aid reaches them and does not reinforce corruption or result in other unintended consequences.