President Obama in Burma ~ UPDATE: Political Prisoners Freed

Recap of entire trip from Alex Wagoner on MSNBC:



UPDATE: Good news - the government of Burma (Myanmar) is releasing dozens of unfairly accused political prisoners during President Obama's visit.

Reuters

Myanmar's government began releasing dozens of political prisoners on Monday as Barack Obama arrived for the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to the former dictatorship.

Sixty-six prisoners were scheduled to be freed, two-thirds of them dissidents, according to prison officials and activists.

They included prominent figures such as Myint Aye, a senior Prison Department official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A third of those released were former military intelligence personnel who fell afoul of the junta, according to the 88 Generation Students political group.

Myint Aye is arguably the most prominent dissident left in Myanmar's gulag. He was one of dozens of activists arrested on what Amnesty International says were trumped-up charges and convicted in secret courts on flimsy evidence or confessions extracted under torture.

Welcome to Burma, Mr President #History twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/…
— The Obama Diary (@TheObamaDiary) November 19, 2012

The welcome sign for Myanmar (Burma) after you turn off the road from the airport. twitter.com/chucktodd/stat…
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) November 19, 2012

Buddhist monks hold the Myanmar and US flags as they welcome President Barack Obama at Yangon International Airport twitter.com/TheObamaDiary/…
— The Obama Diary (@TheObamaDiary) November 19, 2012

Pres. Obama rings a bell at the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma. One of the coolest pictures ever. twitter.com/utaustinlibera…

— Nerdy Wonka (@utaustinliberal) November 22, 2012

Reuters

His plane landed in the former capital Yangon, where he will meet President Thein Sein, a former junta member who has spearheaded reforms since taking office in March 2011, and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who led the struggle against military rule and, like Obama, is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. She is now a lawmaker.

. . . Speaking in Thailand on the eve of his landmark visit to the former pariah state, Obama denied he was going there to offer his "endorsement" or that his trip was premature.

Instead, he insisted his intention was to acknowledge that Myanmar, also known as Burma, had opened the door to democratic change but there was still much more to do.

"I don't think anybody is under the illusion that Burma's arrived, that they're where they need to be," Obama told a news conference as he began a three-country Asian tour, his first trip abroad since winning a second term.

"On the other hand, if we waited to engage until they had achieved a perfect democracy, my suspicion is we'd be waiting an awful long time," he said.