The Secretary (48 page)

Khin Khin Win and Hillary walked with clutched hands, their elbows bent, fingers interlocking
as the Burmese woman told her about her desire to see a better future for her country
and an end to the suffering in the ethnic areas that had endured so much fighting.

While officials ate their way through twelve courses, from deep-fried crab to fried
rice with egg and green peas, the hungry traveling press corps lingered on large,
gaudy chairs, gazed at the small Buddhas, squinted at the chandeliers and all the
gold. The style was an odd combination of Asian culture, bland Chinese design, and
Gulf-style nouveau riche ostentation. The money poured into building the capital—the
cost of the palace alone was estimated at $4 billion—had further drained Burma’s economy.
The opulent city belied the fact that this was a country where malaria was still endemic,
and people lived on less than a dollar a day.

The visit was over. Clinton and her delegation said their good-byes, and we all settled
into our seats for the ride. Burmese journalists snapped pictures of her black limousine.
The president, his wife, and their entourage stood on the steps watching the departing
motorcade drive away over the bridge. The tiny president waved back to occupants in
one of the vans, looking slightly forlorn on the steps of his giant marble palace.

In the distance, we could see the Uppatasanti Pagoda, an exact replica of the Shwedagon
Pagoda in Rangoon. Uppatasanti also stood 325 feet tall, but its jade Buddha apparently
bore a striking resemblance to Than Shwe. Now we were off to see the real thing in
the old capital.

*   *   *

We landed in Rangoon as the sun was setting and raced up the Singutarra Hill to see
the golden pagoda in daylight. The oldest Buddhist pagoda in the world looked more
like a spire than the usual multitiered pagoda. Scintillating in the twilight, with
its gold plating and hundreds of rubies and diamonds, it could be seen from almost
anywhere in the city.

Everybody had to take off shoes and socks to enter the site. Clinton revealed dark-red
toenail polish. DS agents, in their suits and ties, were not amused. Padding around
barefoot, whispering into their earpieces, they looked cartoonish. The site had been
kept open to tourists and locals, and we heard a couple of screams of “We love you,
Hillary” and clapping. Burmese police pushed the crowds away roughly while Clinton’s
staff and DS tried to allow people to come closer to the secretary.

The site was quiet and contemplative, colorful and raucous—a place of meditation where
the only noise, apart from the shrieking fans, was made by Clinton when she sounded
one of the forty-ton bells, a sanctuary of beauty and precious stones punctuated by
odd neon Buddha halos. The visit to the holy site was a rare occasion for the secretary
to do some sightseeing, a moment of peace before the most anticipated meeting of the
trip.

At seven in the evening, a tattered white sedan drove up to the residence of the U.S.
chargé d’affaires in Rangoon, a colonial-style house of understated, hushed elegance
with a portico, teak floors, and a patio. A frail-looking ethereal woman sprang out
of her seat as soon as the car door was opened for her and darted up one step to the
house’s threshold for a meeting she had been looking forward to for weeks.

They could not have had more different lives or been more different in personality
and outlook. But when Hillary and Aung San Suu Kyi came face-to-face for the first
time after years of reading about each other’s struggles and dreams, there appeared
to be a moment of instant recognition. By coincidence, they wore matching outfits
for the occasion—white Asian-style jackets, their hair tied at the back, Suu Kyi’s
low ponytail pinned with flowers.

Hillary had, perhaps for the first time ever, met her match in the equally world-famous,
prodemocracy activist with a quiet demeanor hiding a steely determination. Likewise,
the Nobel Peace laureate, revered in her country and an inspiration to millions around
the world, a political royal treated with deference by her entourage, found herself
in the presence of a woman who was truly her equal.

Hillary’s usual booming “Hello” was replaced with a more subdued tone as she welcomed
Suu Kyi for dinner at the mission. Suu Kyi appeared slightly nervous shaking hands
with her host in the doorway. Though they had never met in person and had spoken on
the phone only once before, Hillary felt like she was meeting a friend after a long
time apart. The tone was familiar but emotional. The two women stood in the doorway
smiling for the cameras, talking softly.

Suu Kyi told Clinton she still had the poster from the 1995 UN conference on women
in Beijing, when Hillary had given her groundbreaking speech on women’s rights. Hillary,
Madeleine Albright (the then U.S. ambassador to the UN), and others had signed a copy
of the poster, and Albright had delivered it to Suu Kyi on a quick visit to Burma.

In Clinton’s packed travel schedule, there was rarely the time—or perhaps even the
desire—for a lengthy one-on-one dinner and this one had initially not been on the
schedule at all. There were only plans for a formal meeting at Suu Kyi’s house on
our second day in Rangoon. But Clinton couldn’t travel all the way from Washington
to Rangoon and meet this iconic woman just to have a diplomatic business discussion.
A table with a white cloth and white china awaited the two women in the front room
of the mission; in the kitchen, the Burmese chef had been laboring all day over a
dinner of Burmese food, including some of Suu Kyi’s favorites.

First they had drinks on the patio with Hillary’s team—Kurt, who had met Suu Kyi before,
and others who hadn’t, like Cheryl Mills, Hillary’s chief of staff. The anticipation
subsided, and the two women slipped into an easy conversation, as if they had known
each other for years and had spoken regularly. On the plane on the way over, Clinton
had also watched a new film about Suu Kyi’s life,
The Lady
. Suu Kyi had read Hillary’s and Bill’s autobiographies. The entourage departed, and
the two women sat down for dinner. The weather was cool, so the dinner china had been
moved out of the dark dining room and onto the patio’s glass table.

Clinton presented her dinner guest with rare editions of books authored and signed
by Eleanor Roosevelt. There would also be a chew toy and bowl for Suu Kyi’s dog the
following day. Suu Kyi gave Clinton a traditional silver necklace she had made herself.
Over three hours, they talked about their lives and their hopes for Burma.

*   *   *

When they met again the next morning, they were ready to get down to business. Clinton’s
black limousine pulled up at Suu Kyi’s home just after nine in the morning. The aging
home, by one of the city’s many lakes, had been Suu Kyi’s prison for years. I had
seen it on television, so I instantly recognized the large front portico, the red-tiled
roof, the lawn, and the water in the background. The Lady stood waiting in the doorway.
Hillary’s hair was pulled back in a chignon, and she wore her new silver necklace
with a light-blue pantsuit.

The two women greeted each other with a kiss on the cheek. Suu Kyi introduced the
secretary to her relatives and staff and showed her the house, laughing about how
much cleaning had gone into the preparations for Hillary’s visit. They sat down at
a round table with both their aides and talked about how to connect the country’s
leaders with the opposition and the outside world as a way to keep the reforms moving
forward. Suu Kyi had been developing a rapport with Thein Sein and indicated she trusted
his intention to reform. She told Hillary she’d been reading books about military
men who had become politicians, including U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower.

*   *   *

But while Thein Sein seemed determined to pursue reforms, it was unclear to Clinton
whether he had the temperament needed to push beyond the initial stages of a process
that would be long and messy. Suu Kyi had faith, and she appealed to Clinton to make
clear to those in the United States who opposed engagement with Burma to listen to
the Burmese people, who wanted contact with the United States. There were some members
of Congress who refused to make any gesture toward the Burmese regime until officials
addressed every single concern of the outside world and righted every wrong. Clinton
disagreed. She had come to believe it was important to seize on every indication that
a regime was willing to reform and try to encourage it, which is why she had come
here. She had listened to the Burmese people, to their leaders, and to the country’s
neighbors. Her presence was the result of a desire for change by the people, steps
taken by the leaders, legwork by other regional leaders, all in coordination and with
the quiet leadership of America. It was the diplomatic version of the Libya war, a
successful version of the failed Turkey-Brazil mediation. Every situation was different,
but they all required the same ingredients—active efforts for change by the people,
willingness of the leaders, regional ownership, and patient, hands-on American coordination.

After their meeting, Clinton and Suu Kyi strolled through the garden, the dog bouncing
around them. The cameras snapped away. The two walked back to the house and up to
the back porch to speak to the media.

The prodemocracy activist had already said she would run in the upcoming parliamentary
elections. There were hints of an electoral campaign in her statement to the press
as she called for equal rights for all ethnic communities in this “union of many people.”

Suu Kyi clasped hands with Clinton as she thanked the United States for its help and
its “calibrated” approach to reengagement with Burma’s government. Hillary leaned
forward tentatively to hug the activist. She was embraced warmly. The two women then
exploded in laughter before walking away together, like two long-lost sisters. In
the midday sun, on the back porch of a colonial home, the power of America and the
power of Hillary had blended into one. It was time to go home.

17

CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD

The uprising in Syria was almost a year old, the death toll stood at nine thousand,
the revolution was no longer peaceful, the rebels were taking up arms. But Bashar
al-Assad was still there. The international community was deeply divided about how
to end the violence. Even those who agreed that Assad had to go could not agree on
how. There was no talk about any Libya-style military intervention. But something
had to be done. So a conference was organized in support of the Syrian people to pledge
humanitarian aid and discuss a post-Assad Syria. The conference would be held on February
24, 2012, in Tunisia, the country where the Arab Spring had started in December 2010.
Keeping the Libya war effort on track had been hard work, but Hillary found that bridging
the gaps between her counterparts on Syria was near impossible. The conference hadn’t
even taken place yet, and the UAE, Turkey, and France were already jostling to host
the next meeting. The Turks and the French were also at each other’s throats over
plans to introduce a bill in the French parliament that would punish those who denied
that the 1915–16 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was genocide. Getting
them into the same room was going to be a challenge. The British barely wanted anything
to do with the Syria quandary. Clinton tried to reason with everyone, keeping them
focused on the task at hand.

Russia and China were both blocking action at the UN, so the conference in Tunis,
blandly dubbed Friends of the Syrian People, was the only way to get any forward diplomatic
momentum. Twice already, in November and earlier in February, Beijing and Moscow had
vetoed a resolution condemning the mounting violence in Syria. The text of the resolutions
was weak and did not even call for sanctions, yet Moscow was adamant that it would
not sign on to any more resolutions that could pave the way to military intervention
and regime change. Russia felt burned by the Libya episode; the anti-Assad protestors
were paying the price.

Russia had motivations beyond Libya too: Syria had been a client state of the Soviet
Union and remained an ally of the Russian Federation. Russia supplied the Syrians
with arms and maintained a naval base in the city of Tartous, on the Mediterranean,
one of its few military bases abroad. Moscow wasn’t going to give up on its ally,
no matter how many people had already died.

Both Russia and China looked at the Arab uprisings, especially in Syria, through their
respective prisms. In Syria, Russia saw echoes of Chechnya, a rebellious Muslim region
that tried to break away from Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and
lived through two ferocious Russian military campaigns to crush the rebellion, devastating
cities like Grozny and killing tens of thousands of civilians. The rebels carried
out a number of horrific attacks inside Russia proper, which killed scores of civilians.
Beijing had its own history of crushing dissent both at home and in Tibet, a territory
over which Beijing had forcibly declared Chinese sovereignty. Assad was doing what
China and Russia had done in the past when faced with a rebellion. They understood
and approved of his tactics, and were ready to stick by him. They were not going to
Tunis.

Russia also appeared eager to make a stand on the world stage in a way that it hadn’t
been able to do since the end of the Cold War. Today’s Russia was not the same world
player that the Soviet Union had been. Its areas of influence were limited, and there
were not many big strategic games in which it could participate. China had once supported
people who rose up against colonial powers but now worried about setting any precedents
of outside interference that could be used to challenge the tight grip of the Communist
Party on China.

After each veto at the UN, U.S. ambassador Susan Rice expressed her outrage and disgust,
saying it was clear “who on this council supports [Syrians’] yearning for liberty
and human rights.” The Americans could be seen as hypocrites—unwilling to take any
forceful action, they were grandstanding while hiding behind Russia’s veto. But the
United States and the European Union had already gone beyond condemning the violence,
imposing sanctions on a growing number of Syrian officials. The United States was
adamant that Russian action at the UN would have sent a clear signal to Assad that
he had to stop shooting and start a real political transition to a Syria where he
was not president.