BURMA: Suu Kyi’s Hunger Strike Casts Doubts on Junta’s Reforms

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, Sep 1 2003 (IPS) - Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi appears to have delivered the perfect riposte to the machinations of her captors, Rangoon’s military government. She has launched a hunger strike, according to the U.S. government.

The startling revelation made by the U.S. State Department in Washington comes in the wake of a flurry of political activity by the military regime to counter the intense global pressure it is under for its re-detention of Suu Kyi since May 30 and for refusing genuine dialogue with the opposition in Burma.

”The United States has learned that Burma’s pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is on a hunger strike to protest her illegal detention by that country’s military regime,” State Department deputy spokesman Philip Reeker was quoted as having told the media on Sunday.

The reaction here has been swift, with sympathisers of the Nobel peace laureate viewing this as a measure in keeping with Suu Kyi’s Gandhian approach to combat the political oppression of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the Burmese junta calls itself.

”It is very likely she is on a hunger strike. It is consistent with her commitment to non-violent resistance,” Debbie Stothard of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN), a regional human rights lobby, told IPS. ”This is the only means she has at her disposal.”

According to Stothard, whose organisation has long-time links with people inside and outside Burma, the U.S. government’s disclosure could mean that the Nobel peace laureate ”would have been on a hunger strike for a few days”.

But the SPDC is dismissing Washington’s bombshell. ”Myanmar’s government as well as governments around the world are confused and we firmly believe it is quite odd for the United States State Department to make such a claim without stating any sources to verify its allegation,” the military regime declared in statement released Monday.

News of Suu Kyi’s hunger strike comes as she is about to mark another low point in political life under the junta – Sep. 9 will complete 100 days of Suu Kyi being forced to remain incommunicado after being taken into military custody on May 30.

Since her arrest – after thugs linked to the regime attacked her and leading members of her political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), when she was heading to a political rally – Suu Kyi has only had two contacts with the outside world, says Stothard.

The first was in June, when Razali Ismail, the U.N. special envoy to Burma, saw her, and then when she met representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in July, adds Stothard.

This is the fourth time that Suu Kyi has resorted to a hunger strike. The previous occasions were in 1989, after the junta imprisoned student supporters who had been in her home, in 1991 and 1998.

Suu Kyi’s latest demonstration of non-violent protest could not have come at a worst time for Rangoon’s strongmen – it offers a wordless, yet powerful, comment from the country’s pro-democracy leader about the recent plans by the junta to usher political reforms for this South-east Asian country.

In late August, the military government provided the first hint of such change by unveiling what appeared to be a power shift in Rangoon. Maj Gen Than Shwe, the all-powerful leader who was chairman of the junta and the country’s prime minister, was to take over the newly created post of president.

Replacing him as prime minister was Gen Khin Nyunt, the powerful intelligence chief who is considered in some quarters as a moderate. On Saturday, Burma’s new premier pledged to kick start a stalled political process aimed at drafting a new constitution and conducting elections.

But any hope the junta might had of winning international sympathy for its efforts has been shredded by Suu Kyi’s hunger strike. Critics of the junta say they can well understand the pro-democracy leader’s stance given the message coming out of Rangoon in recent months.

”These are efforts to buy time. We don’t trust the SPDC about being serious about political change,” Zin Lin, spokesman for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, the country’s government in exile, told IPS.

At Burma’s 1990 general election, the NLD won 392 of the 485 seats in parliament, with the pro-junta National Unity Party only securing 10 seats. But the military government never recognised this result, denying the new government its chance to sit in parliament.

”If Khin Nyunt is serious about reform he should release all the political prisoners immediately, allow political parties to function and give them and agenda and timetable work toward,” Kraisak Choonhavan, chairman of the Thai Senate’s committee on foreign affairs, said in an interview. ”That would be believable.”

According to human rights activist Sunai Phasuk, the link between Suu Kyi’s hunger strike and the political developments in Burma is clear. She is objecting to the cosmetic changes long associated with the junta, said Sunai of Forum Asia, a Bangkok-based human rights body.

”It is a plea that the world should not be fooled by the SPDC’s reshuffle,” he told IPS.

In the wake of the military regime’s re-arrest under ‘protective custody’ of Suu Kyi after thugs, believed to be linked to the government, attacked her group in northern Burma in May, Rangoon has come under mounting international pressure.

Besides tough sanctions imposed by the U.S. government and threats of aid being slashed, Burma has also faced criticism from a 10-member regional grouping it belongs to, the Association of South-east Asian Nations.

”This (hunger strike) is Suu Kyi’s way of telling the international community to keep up the pressure on the SPDC,” added Stothard. ”This is a cry for help.”