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Hope for 'continued progress' in Myanmar
01:55 - Source: CNN

Story highlights

CNN's Dan Rivers back in Myanmar after being deported... twice

He's emailing from Aung San Suu Kyi's garden ahead of a visit by Barack Obama

U.S. president is on historic trip to Myanmar Monday as part of Asian tour

Obama is first sitting U.S. president to visit Myanmar after years of repressive military rule

University Avenue, Yangon CNN  — 

I am surfing the Internet from Aung San Suu Kyi’s garden. That sentence implies several minor miracles.

The fact that I am in the country at all is surprising.

I was deported for my reporting on the repression here… twice. Now I have been invited back with the White House press pack, my past “sins” apparently forgotten.

To be here at this most famous house is strangely moving.

I’d driven past it on numerous occasions when Daw Suu was under house arrest – the secret police watching the entrance, whispering into their radios, as they saw a car full of Westerners approaching.

You couldn’t even stop on this part of University Avenue in those days, let alone wander around the manicured garden of “the Lady.”

Now I am waiting for her most famous visitor yet – U.S. President Barack Obama will be stopping here for a chat.

Read more: Obama to urge Myanmar not to extinguish ‘flickers of progress’

It is the historic culmination of three years of hard diplomacy.

The U.S. policy of sanctions was clearly failing: punishing the people and leaving the elite free to plunder the rich resources of this benighted country.

In 2009, the White House initiated a review of policy towards the country it still stubbornly calls Burma.

It resulted in a significant shift toward Myanmar. Engagement was the watchword. But few dared to predict how quickly events would move.

Officials here are frank about their astonishment.

Don’t forget it was only just over two years ago that Suu Kyi was still under house arrest and the whole road map to democracy seemed a sham.

Now she is not only free, but meeting leaders around the world.

She is an elected member of parliament, and President Thein Sein has even talked about her one day being a future leader.

It’s important not to get too carried away. Poverty is still endemic, 25% of the country doesn’t have electricity, healthcare is parlous, ethnic conflict still stalks verdant hills in the north and what amounts to ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims continues in the west.

The Army still controls politics and business. Hundreds of political prisoners languish behind bars.

But there is something in the air here that has been so desperately lacking in the past: hope.

Read more: Myanmar’s president grants prisoners amnesty

Its enticing scent is wafting through the carefully-tended roses of Daw Suu’s garden.

And there’s something else in the air here too: Wifi!

In a country where Internet access is restricted, slow and very expensive, the fact that I can email photos and text wirelessly in a garden – in Myanmar – is incredible.

Another minor miracle. Let me say it again: I am surfing the internet from Aung San Suu Kyi’s garden.