Diplomacy works! Just ask Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, who today won the release of political prisoner John Yettaw.Senator Webb met with Senior General Than Shwe, leader of the Myanmar military junta, and negotiated Yettaw's release. According to NPR, Yettaw, a 53-year-old American, had been sentenced to seven years of hard labor in prison for swimming to the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and staying there for two nights in May.
The senator also met with Suu Kyi during his two day visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma. The Nobel Peace Prize Laureate has been sentenced to a year and a half under house arrest, a sentence that was reduced from the originally mandated three years in prison. The pro-democracy opposition leader, a prisoner of conscience held solely for her political beliefs, has frequently been detained for the past 20 years. In addition to this "Ambassador of Conscience", the Myanmar military junta holds over 2100 other political prisoners, often in terribly poor conditions.
Senator Webb's visit to Myanmar, demanding the release of Yuttaw and exposing the plight of other political prisoners, is virtually unprecedented. He is the first member of US Congress to visit the country in more than a decade, representing a new commitment to foreign policy by the Obama administration. "It is my hope that we can take advantage of these gestures as a way to begin laying the foundations of goodwill and confidence building in the future."
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has also been promoting this type of foreign policy during her visit to Africa this week, notably raising awareness of the use of rape as a weapon and conflict minerals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
For more on this story, check out NPR and CNN.
To take action and demand the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, click here.
