Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is to face trial for breaching the conditions of her detention under house arrest, her lawyers have said.
She was taken to a prison from her home in Rangoon, where she has spent most of the past 19 years.
A US man whose apparently uninvited visit to her home led to the charges, will also be tried on immigration and security offences.The American man, John Yettaw, was arrested after swimming across a lake to her house and staying there secretly for two days.
It looks as though this is a pretext to keep her detained for the elections due in 2010 which the generals think will give them some legitimacy.
Reports say she was charged under the country's Law Safeguarding the State from the Dangers of Subversive Elements, which carried a three-to-five-year jail term.
The re-imprisionment of Aung San Suu Kyi only serves to further undermine the military junta's attempts at 'democracy.'
ReplyDeleteTheir new constitution states that elections will be held in 2010 but of course there is much speculation as to whether or not this will occur. This action gives some hope that Myanmar may be moving towards democracy.
However, the reimprisionment of Aung San Suu Kyi totally undermines this. Aung San Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San who was supposed to be the leader of a new democratic Burma following independence. However, he and his shadow cabinet were assassinated. The democratic values of her father were instilled in Suu Kyi through her mother and she became a symbol of democracy and the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD).
In 1989 the NLD won the general election but the military refused to acknowledge the results. Since then, Suu Kyi has been continually under house arrest to prevent her taking political action with her party. To make her even less powerful the junta passed a law stating anybody who had married a foreigner was ineligible to run for office. This was almost certainly aimed at paralysing Suu Kyi who had married as Englishman. Despite her continual house arrest she has gained significant support, even from Jim Carrey (go to YouTube and search for it, it's probably the only time you'll see him be serious. There are also some good interviews with Suu Kyi)
Aung San Suu Kyi's efforts for democracy have been recognised worldwide, in particular when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. To date she has not been able to formally receive it, due to house arrest and not being allowed to leave the country
The reimprisonment of Suu Kyi, to me, is a clear sign that the 2010 elections will either not occur or will be highly biased and unfair. Suu Kyi and her party are the best chance the country has at regaining civilian government. That the junta are further paralysing the party shows they are not planning on losing power and the promise of elections are more of a facade of democracy than the real deal.
Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi on trial
ReplyDeletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8054643.stm