Burma frees dissidents but many still in jail

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking to Reuters before Myanmar began a general amnesty for 6,359 inmates that had been expected to include political detainees, said she was encouraged by "promising signals" of reform but that it was too early to announce steps Washington might take in response.

The United States, Europe and Australia have said freeing an estimated 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar is essential to even considering lifting sanctions that have crippled the pariah state and, over years, driven it closer to China.

Authorities have in the past released dissidents only to detain them again later in crackdowns on democracy activists.

By mid-day, about two dozen political prisoners appeared to have been freed, according to Reuters interviews with prison officials and families of detainees. A Thai-based group that monitors detainees in Myanmar, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma), said the total was at least 100.

But one of the country's most famous political prisoners, who led a failed 1988 uprising, was not freed and rights group Amnesty International said it was disappointed more political detainees were not let go.

There were also conflicting reports about a prominent monk who led street protests in 2007, Shin Gambira, with one source saying he had been freed but an activist later saying he had not.

Myanmar has faced pressure for change on multiple fronts - from the need to find alternatives to China in the face of popular resentment of its influence, to growing frustration in Southeast Asia over Myanmar's isolation as the region approaches an EU-style Asian community in 2015.

Diplomats say other factors play into Myanmar's desire for change, including a need for technical assistance from the World Bank and other multilateral institutions which cut off ties years ago in response to rights abuses in a country where about 30 percent of the people live in poverty, according to UN data.

One prominent freed dissident was Zarganar, who goes by one name and was arrested in June 2008. He had been sentenced to 59 years in a remote prison after criticising Myanmar's then-ruling generals for their sluggish response to Cyclone Nargis, which killed more than 140,000 people when it slammed into the Irrawaddy delta a month earlier.

Sai Say Htan, an ethnic Shan leader sentenced to 104 years in prison in 2005 for refusing to take part in drafting a new constitution, was also freed, prison sources and relatives said.

Believed to be in his late 70s, Sai Say Htan was a leader of the Shan State Army, which fought for decades against successive military regimes that ruled following a 1962 coup.

But Min Ko Naing, a still influential leader of a 1988 uprising that the military crushed, was not freed, a prison official and relative said.

Another prominent member of the so-called 88 Generation Students Group, Ko Ko Gyi, was also believed to be still in prison, the prison official said. About 30 members of the group are in different jails.

Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Myanmar researcher based in Bangkok, said the preliminary double-digit numbers of freed political prisoners looked "disappointing".

The army nominally handed over power in March to civilians after elections in November, a process ridiculed at the time as a sham to cement authoritarian rule behind a democratic facade.

Nevertheless, President Thein Sein, a retired general but the first civilian head of state in half a century, has initiated overtures, including calls to win over restive ethnic minorities, some tolerance of criticism and more communication with Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released last year from 15 years of house arrest.

A new national human rights commission called on the president in an open letter published in state media on Tuesday to free prisoners who did not pose "a threat to the stability of state and public tranquillity".

The open letter marked a significant shift in the former British colony where authorities have long refused to recognise the existence of political prisoners, usually dismissing such detainees as common criminals.

Nestled strategically between powerhouses India and China, Myanmar has been one of the world's most difficult destinations for investors, restricted by sanctions, blighted by decades of inept military rule and starved of capital despite rich natural resources, from gems to timber to oil.

Its infrastructure is in shambles and its sanctions-hit economy has few sources of growth beyond billions of dollars of investment from China. Many of its 50 million people have voiced rare, open criticism recently of Beijing's growing influence in a country where China has been a historic rival.

Last week, the government suspended a $3.6 billion, Chinese-led dam project, a victory for supporters of Suu Kyi and a sign the country was willing to yield to popular resentment over China's growing influence.

These moves have stirred cautious hopes the new parliament will slowly prise open the country that just over 50 years ago was one of Southeast Asia's wealthiest – the world's biggest rice exporter and a major energy producer.