(Journalist Danny Fenster, left, and Bill Richardson, right, celebrate liberation. Danny will not spend the next decade in a dank Burmese jail. He is headed home because of Bill’s efforts. Photo AP).
Want a hero for a Monday morning? We have one for you. His name is Bill Richardson. He is one of our heroes. His resume is impressive: he served as US Ambassador to the United Nations, Governor of the great state of New Mexico, Secretary of Energy, and Representative for New Mexico’s Third District. That is the time we got a chance to serve in some of his remarkable independent diplomatic missions.
As you know, we live in unsettled times. With so much uncertainty, the Staff at Socotra House is deeply grateful to journalists Grant Peck and David Rising of the Associated Press. The Bunk House was stirring this morning, still adjusting from time-changes and increasing seasonal cold. Loma and DeMille had been digging at old Burmese expat contacts yesterday to see what might might be done to help.
It worked the way we remember. Our first news normally comes when one of the Interns trudges out to the county farm road to find the morning paper. This morning the news blared above the fold: Danny is free.
The weekend had brought alarming news about Danny Fenster. He is a journalist originally from Detroit who traveled to Myanmar, the nation formerly known as Burma, to tell the story of dramatic change. In the end, that change veered from freedom to imprisonment.
Yesterday, we had attempted to gauge the impact of the court decision in Myanmar’s capital Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon. On Friday, Danny had received the harshest sentence of the seven journalists arrested by the military junta that seized control last February. The sentence was an agonizing 11 years for the alleged crimes of “spreading false or inflammatory information, contacting illegal organizations and violating visa regulations.”
This is an old story for the crowd around the Fire Ring. When we were younger, we supported a few of Bill’s trips to the unsettled world. The places included Haiti and GITMO in this hemisphere, and Taiwan, North Korea and Myanmar across the Pacific. He is an extraordinary American, and one of our heroes.
Bill released a statement this morning saying Danny “had been handed over to him in Myanmar and would return to the U.S. via Qatar over the next day and a half.” His office amplified the statement by expressing gratitude that “Danny will finally be able to reconnect with his loved ones, who have been advocating for him all this time, against immense odds.”
Bill negotiated Danny’s release during face-to-face meetings with Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the military leader who ousted the elected government of The Lady, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
When we were last in Burma with Bill, he had negotiated The Lady’s release from house arrest. The Press this morning cited his record as a sort of “freelance diplomat.” That is not the way we remember it. President Clinton used him as a cut-out around the usual State Department channels. Bill could report honestly and without baggage directly back to the Oval Office. His success was undisputed, and his ties to The Lady, while she was still in power, were confirmed in his last unofficial visit three years ago.
The next step is to see if the military will cede control and return to an elected government. We know just how brutal the militarists can be. It is said they have killed 1,200 in their quest for power. But a voice for democracy and self-rule has been freed, and it was Bill who pulled it off.
Truth is a funny thing, and ours was covered by other issues. On the trip we supported in 1994, our mission was ostensibly about Americans still missing in action from the Vietnam War.
Under that rubric, Bill was working current issues under the cover of older ones. The real intent was to establish what became known as “The Agreed Framework” in Pyongyang on nuclear issues. It was also to free The Lady in Burma and re-establish relations with the unified government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. He succeeded to some degree on all of those disparate issues. But the cover mission was not a subterfuge. It was as real as life.
Bill has not ceased in his efforts to free the innocent, most recently for U.S. citizens detained in Venezuela, while attempting to deal with the expulsion of 700,000 Burmese Muslim Rohingya to neighboring Bangladesh.
In this morning’s news, he talked with The Associated Press about his latest visit to Myanmar. In our trip it had been the MIA issue as cover to help overthrow the SLORC junta. This time, the overarching topic was provision of COVID-19 vaccines as “humanitarian assistance.”
But it was also about Danny. The AP asked him if there was hope. Bill responded that “There’s always hope. Don’t ask any more.”
In our experience, though, hope needs help. And it is people like Bill who give us a reason to keep hoping.
If you have a moment this morning, give a thought for people who keep pressing for Freedom. And now Danny can tell his story. It is going to be interesting. And it is because Bill made it happen.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com