BURMESE OPPOSITION LEADER WEAK AFTER REFUSING FOOD FOR FOUR WEEKS

By Zin Linn and - - Reprint | | Print |

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BANGKOG, Sep 18 2008 (IPS) - Detained Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is malnourished after having refused food supplies for over four weeks in protest against her unlawful detention, sources from her party, the National League for Democracy party (NLD), report, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma is presently the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma. In this analysis, Linn writes that the military junta that rules the country has stated that she is not staging a hunger strike, while the NLD has stopped short of using the term. The leader of the NLD, which swept the 1990 parliamentary elections, Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest. The junta refused to accept the results of the vote. There is clear evidence of growing divisions among Burma\’s military brass over the treatment of Suu Kyi and how to protect the army\’s future political role in Burma. The split is largely between pragmatists who understand the need for political and economic reform, and the hardliners who want to hang on to power regardless of the pressure for change from inside and outside of the country. Suu Kyi knows that time is running out. Her current protest is a brave wake-up call to the whole nation, especially the men in uniform who support a pragmatic approach to rebuilding the ruined nation.

The military junta that rules the country has stated that she is not staging a hunger strike, while the NLD has stopped short of using the term. According to the NLD sources, Suu Kyi’s refusal to receive food, ended on September 16.

Leader of the NLD, which swept the 1990 parliamentary elections, Suu Kyi has spent 12 of the last 18 years under house arrest. The junta refused to accept the results of the vote.

Suu Kyi’s lawyer, U Kyi Win, said that during their two-hour meeting on 11 September he and his client discussed filing a legal appeal of her current sentence of house arrest. The charge against her carries a maximum of five years detention, but Suu Kyi is now entering her sixth year of house arrest for this incidence.

Suu Kyi’s detention is in violation of the Burmese State Protection Law under which she is being held. The law stipulates: “The duration of such restriction shall be kept to a minimum,” and “Only necessary restriction of fundamental rights shall be decided.”

The opposition leader had been demanding better conditions for her house arrest, including access to information, deliveries of private mail, and monthly visits by her physician. Her party spokesperson, U Nyan Win, said that she had also asked for permission of Internet access, but it was undisclosed whether the authorities registered the claim.

On January 30, 2008, during the fifth meeting with the SPDC (State Peace and Development Council) Liaison Minister Aung Kyi, appointed as mediator between Suu Kyi and senior general Than Shwe, the opposition leader called again for the inclusion of representatives of ethnic groups in the talks. She also articulated her dissatisfaction with the previous meetings with Aung Kyi and the fact that no time frame had been set for the talks.

“Let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst,” Suu Kyi told NLD central executive committee members. She made it clear to them that the junta would not take into account the people’s political aspirations. Political unrest may not be avoidable in the near future.

For Suu Kyi, the will of the people was unequivocally expressed in the 1990 elections. The junta clearly does not want any of the NLD delegates-elect to participate in the drafting of a new constitution or the restructuring of Burma.

United Nations special envoy Ibrahim Gambari’s August 18-23 mission to resolve the political impasse between the junta and Suu Kyi accomplished nothing. Gambari failed to meet with the senior general. Moreover, at the August 20 meeting with Suu Kyi arranged by the junta, in protest the NLD leader refused to show up, sending a clear signal to the people.

She subsequently refused to meet both her doctor and Aung Kyi, agreeing only to see her lawyer. To the military junta that runs Burma, Suu Kyi is a threat to peace and stability; to the majority of the population of the country she is an icon of change. Her indefinite incarceration is not merely a matter of law and order; it is an emblem of the suppression of the political aspirations of the Burmese people, who overwhelmingly favour change.

The generals that make up the junta usually react with hysterics to calls to free her, which come frequently from around the world. Her plight has been more in the public eye since she won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990.

Suu Kyi is also calling attention to the lack of law and order in the country and in particular the crimes committed by military authorities in recent years, the most atrocious of which was the assassination attempt on Suu Kyi and her entourage at Dapeyin in northern Burma on 30 May 2003.

The Dapeyin events had repercussions among the top generals. There is clear evidence of growing divisions among Burma’s military brass over the treatment of Suu Kyi and how to protect the army’s future political role in Burma. The split is largely between pragmatists who understand the need for political and economic reform, and the hardliners who want to hang on to power regardless of the pressure for change from inside and outside of the country.

Suu Kyi knows that time is running out. Her current protest against the junta is a brave wake-up call to the whole nation, including the men in uniform who support a pragmatic approach to rebuilding the ruined nation. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)