BURMA: ‘Suu Kyi Spurned Junta’s Offer’

By Marwaan Macan-Markar Reprint | | Print |

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 31 2006 (IPS) - When Burma’s military regime extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi on the weekend, it deepened the country’s political despair.

According to one source with intimate knowledge of Rangoon’s procedures, the measures adopted by the junta to inform the Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi of her continuation as a political prisoner were a departure from previous practice.

The meeting, on Friday evening, ”was longer than usual”, said this source on condition of anonymity. ”Normally it takes a few minutes when the police officers read a statement to Suu Kyi. But this time something more was talked about.”

And in the days since, other Burmese with connections inside the South-east Asian country have been able to piece together the message the junta delivered to Suu Kyi, head of the main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD).

”Last Friday’s discussion between Aung San Suu Kyi and the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) was to offer her partial freedom as a condition of her release,” said Thaung Htun, the U.N. representative of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma (NCGUB), the democratically-elected Burmese government in exile.

”The SPDC wants her to refrain from touring the country, from visiting the NLD office and from getting back to active politics,” he added during an interview. ”The SPDC is not certain about the new political wave that will be created after her release. They are not ready to release her unconditionally.”

But Suu Kyi had not conceded. ”She did not accept the conditions because they were unreasonable given her role. She made that judgement call,” Khin Omar, head of the Network for Democracy and Development, a group of Burmese political activists in exile, told IPS.

The State Peace and Development Council is the official name of the military regime. The current dictatorship, which changed the country’s name to Myanmar, is part of successive military regimes that have ruled Burma with an iron grip since a 1962 coup.

In the days leading to May 27, when Suu Kyi’s period of detention was due to expire, there was growing hope among sections of Burmese, within the country and in exile, that she would be released.

Such expectations about the woman, who is becoming as famous as South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, grew after she had a visit, a week ago, from Ibrahim Gambari who was permitted an hour-long meeting with in a state guest house in Rangoon. It was the first contact the 60-year-old had with a U.N. envoy- or foreign visitor, for that matter – in two years.

Coming on the heels of Gambari’s rare encounter with the NLD leader was a personal request made by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to Burma’s strongman, senior Gen. Than Shwe. ”I take this opportunity to appeal to Gen. Than Shwe and the government to release her,” Annan declared in a statement on May 26 during a brief visit to Bangkok. ”I am relying on you, Gen. Than Shwe, to do the right thing.”

But on Tuesday, Annan had to say he was disappointed by the decision to extend Suu Kyi’s house arrest. “I’m disappointed that when the government reviewed her detention, they did not decide to release her. I will continue to work with our partners in the region and as you may have noted, quite a few of them issued statements appealing for her release,” media reports quoted him as saying.

Tuesday marked three years since Suu Kyi began her current period of house arrest following an attack on her and members of the NLD on May 30, 2003, by thugs linked to the junta. They were on a political campaign in northern Burma. She is being held under a ”preventive detention” law that was introduced to the country in 1875 when Burma was a British colony.

Suu Kyi has spent over 10 of the past 17 years under house arrest, with the current stretch, the third of its kind, being the worst, since the junta has cut all contacts she can have with the world beyond her lakeside villa in Rangoon. Even her personal physician’s visits have been restricted to one in every eight weeks.

The continuing imprisonment of Burma’s symbol of democracy is expected to add new international pressure on a regime deemed a pariah by the U.S. government and the European Union and also viewed as a political liability by its South-east Asian neighbours. Washington has led the global campaign to impose economic sanctions on Burma and also put pressure on the United Nations to have Burma scrutinised by the Security Council.

The military regime, which has been desperately trying to avoid U.N. censure, is being blamed for blocking political reform in a bid to stay on in power through force. It also stands charged for a slew of human rights violations, among which are forced labour, conscription of child soldiers, using rape as a weapon of war, attacks of the country’s ethnic communities, imprisoning over 1,100 democracy activists and imposing a harsh censorship.

The junta’s legitimacy has been in doubt ever since the NLD scored a thumping victory at a 1990 general election, winning 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats. Rangoon refused to recognise the NCGUB that was formed as a result of that triumph. The National Unity Party (NUP), which represented the junta in that poll, only secured 10 seats.

That the SPDC is determined to stay the political course as Burma’s rulers was underscored this week. Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win told reporter Monday on the sidelines of a Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Malaysia, that the Suu Kyi issue was an internal affair. ”This is not an international issue,” he was quoted as having said, in media reports.

Such a stance, together with increasing signs of the SPDC wanting to marginalise Suu Kyi and the NLD, have added to the concerns that the democracy icon’s life may be threatened if she is released. It stems from the growing power and visibility the SPDC is giving to the Union Solidarity and Development Association, described by some as the political face of the regime and by others as a civilian militia. USDA members, in fact, were involved in the May 2003 attack on Suu Kyi.

”We are concerned about her safety,” says Khin Omar, the political activist. ”The SPDC will have a back up plan to clamp her down even after freedom.”