Burma’s President Thein Sein flew on Sunday evening from Phnom Penh to Rangoon where he will host visiting US President Barack Obama on Monday. Thein Sein will then return to the Cambodian capital to resume participation at the current ASEAN summit.
President Obama has been scheduled to meet Thein Sein and Lower House Speaker Shwe Mann as well as Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi during his six-hour stopover visit in Rangoon before he too flies to Phnom Penh to attend the summit.
Obama is due to deliver a speech at the Convocation Hall of Rangoon University, and will reportedly have lunch at the US Embassy in Rangoon.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has reported that Obama’s Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, spent time in Burma during World War II when he was a cook for a British Army captain. President Obama never met his grandfather.
Hussein Onyango Obama is believed to be born in 1895, and was a member of the Luo tribe. He worked for several years as a servant for white colonialists in Kenya. His son, the first Barack Hussein Obama, was the president’s father. About 75,000 Kenyans served in Burma during World War II.
