Washington, August 17: An ailing American who was spared a seven-year prison sentence in Myanmar underwent medical testing in Bangkok on Monday, a day after an influential U.S. senator secured his release from the military-ruled country.
John Yettaw’s family in the United States said the 53-year-old was hospitalized in the Thai capital and not in good health after three months in a Myanmar prison, where he was held for sneaking into the home of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
“Our first priority is ensuring the health of Mr. Yettaw,” said Cynthia Brown, the U.S. Embassy spokeswoman in Bangkok, who declined to say where Yettaw was receiving medical care or when he was expected to return home.
Yettaw flew to Bangkok on Sunday with Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia, who held rare talks in Myanmar with the junta’s reclusive Senior Gen. Than Shwe and with Suu Kyi during a high-profile, three-day trip.
Webb said he believes years of sanctions have failed to move the Southeast Asian country toward democratic reforms or talks with Suu Kyi.
Webb told reporters in Bangkok he would discuss his conclusions and recommendations with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and others on his return to Washington. He declined to speculate on what the Obama administration — which is reviewing its policy toward Myanmar — would do. Webb can rally support for changes to U.S. policy in Asia as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s East Asia and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee.
Webb told reporters Sunday that Yettaw “is not a well man” and would be “undergoing thorough medical review” in Bangkok. Yettaw had been held at Insein Prison in Myanmar’s biggest city Yangon since his arrest in early May.
Myanmar state television said Sunday night that Yettaw, from Falcon, Missouri, was freed on humanitarian grounds because of his health. He reportedly suffers from diabetes, epilepsy and asthma and was hospitalized for a week during the trial after suffering seizures.
Yettaw was apprehended May 6 as he swam away from Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence, where he had sheltered for two days after sneaking in uninvited. He was convicted last week of breaking the terms of Suu Kyi’s house arrest and related charges, and sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor.
Suu Kyi, who has been detained for 14 of the last 20 years, was herself sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor for violating her house arrest conditions through Yettaw’s visit, although that was reduced to 18 months under house arrest by order of junta chief, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
Observers widely believe Yettaw’s intrusion into Suu Kyi’s home gave the junta a legal pretext to keep the Nobel laureate incarcerated through next year’s general election. Yettaw testified that he had a vision that Suu Kyi was at risk from assassins, and visited her to warn her.
A pale and haggard-looking Yettaw had to be assisted as he walked off a small plane with Webb on arrival in Bangkok. He smiled and flashed ‘I love you’ in sign language to waiting reporters. He did not respond to questions.
In the United States, Yettaw’s family said they were waiting for results from the medical evaluation in Thailand.
His ex-wife, Yvonne, said she had spoken to his current wife, Betty Yettaw, of Camdenton, Missouri, who said she spoke with her husband in Bangkok.
She said Betty told her they were just running tests in the Bangkok hospital, but did not know what for. “But he is not in good health,” said Yvonne Yettaw, of Palm Springs, California.
“He told her he was not treated as well as everyone there and in the press had been saying,” Yvonne Yettaw said.
Yvonne Yettaw also said the family has to pay for his ticket home and there have been some complications trying to schedule a flight, so it is unclear when he will be returning to the U.S.
The Democrat lawmaker said at a news conference in Bangkok that Yettaw’s release “was a gesture from the government of Myanmar that we should be grateful for and hopefully build upon.”
He said years of Western sanctions had denied Myanmar’s people “the kind of access to the outside world that is essential to their economic and political growth.”
Webb was allowed a rare meeting with Suu Kyi, and said he had asked the junta to release her — a long-standing demand of the United States and much of the international community.
The meeting Saturday between Webb and Than Shwe was the reclusive general’s first with a senior U.S. political figure.
Webb said he was hopeful that over time the junta would realize “it is to their advantage to allow (Suu Kyi) to participate in the political process.”
–Agencies