Alumni toast Obama speech at Myanmar radical campus

AGENCE FRANCE- PRESSE of State Hillary Clinton.

With US and Myanmar flags adorning a bamboo screen behind him, he told a rapt audience of students, pro- democracy leaders, lawmakers and other dignitaries that “you can taste freedom” but called for reforms to be deepened.

The symbolism of the occasion could hardly be lost on those listening intently in the packed hall.

The country’s recent history has been “intimately linked to the university”, said historian and writer Thant Myint U.

“It has been the site of nationalist and democratic struggle for many decades . . . many people will hope that the president speaking from there could mean that we have reached a turning point.”

He also expressed hopes that the top- level visit could also help to foster a revival in Myanmar’s higher education system, left in tatters by decades of army rule, reviving “not just academic freedom but intellectual freedom.”

It was a theme picked up by Obama who linked the future of country to the education of its youth.

The White House hopes Obama’s visit to Myanmar, the first by a sitting US leader, will boost President Thein Sein’s reform drive, which saw Suu Kyi enter parliament after her rivals in the junta made way for a nominally civilian government.

“The flickers of progress that we have seen must not be extinguished. They must be strengthened,” added Obama, who is on his foreign trip since winning re- election this month.

The public enthusiastically embraced his visit, with thousands of people lining Yangon’s streets as his motorcade rolled through the dilapidated city.

After a red- carpet welcome for Air Force One, Obama met President Thein Sein at a regional parliament, followed by fellow Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi at the lakeside villa where she defiantly served 15 years of house arrest.