Archive for the ‘Military’ Category
Burma: Vigil at Insein for Suu Kyi-Independent
Brave Suu Kyi supporters keep vigil for trial
Phoebe Kennedy
The Independent: May 18, 2009
As the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi opened in Rangoon today, dozens of her supporters braved razor wire barriers, road blocks and paramilitary intimidation outside Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison, where the trial is taking place, to show their solidarity with her.
The democracy leader is accused of violating the terms of her house arrest by allowing her unwelcome guest, John Yettaw, an American citizen who swam across the lake to the family villa where she is confined, to stay. If found guilty she could be jailed for five years.
Win Tin, a member of her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), who spent 19 years in isolation in the jail as a political prisoner, was one of the protesters. In a telephone interview with The Independent he said the trial was simply a ploy to extend her detention, which is about to expire.
“They are using this to extend her house arrest and to avoid her being present during the elections,” said the 79-year-old former journalist. “[That way,] she cannot meet the people, she cannot say anything against the election. She will be absent.” Elections under a new, widely criticised constitution are scheduled for next year.
British ambassador Mark Canning and other senior foreign diplomats tried to enter the prison to attend the trial but were turned back at a road block.
The closed court inside the high-security prison heard Lt Col Zaw Min Oo, chief prosecutor, accuse Ms Suu Kyi of being “in breach of discipline” for failing to turn Mr Yettaw over to the police who guarded her house.
But Nyan Win, one of Ms Suu Kyi’s three lawyers, rejected the charges. Speaking to The Independent outside the court, he said, “It is ridiculous to say it was a breach of discipline when this man was an intruder, she did not invite him there.” He added that the trial could last up to three months.
Ms Suu Kyi, 63, will plead not guilty, but observers fear that the outcome of the trial – a guilty verdict – is not in doubt. Her supporters believe the regime may use the case as a pretext for extending her latest six-year term of detention ahead of a 2010 general election which the military hopes will entrench its dominance under a new, much criticised constitution.
Mr Yettaw, a Mormon and Vietnam veteran whose motives are still unclear, swam more than a kilometre across Rangoon’s Inya Lake to Ms Suu Kyi’s home in early May. Ms Suu Kyi pleaded with him to leave, her lawyers say, but allowed him to stay the night when he complained of cramp and exhaustion. The 53-year-old American, who was arrested as he swam away from the house, is charged with immigration offences and entering a restricted zone.
Belying reports of fragile health, the opposition leader, dressed in an elegant Burmese outfit – a sky blue fitted jacket and matching long skirt – was in good spirits, according to Nyan Win.
“She asked me to give a message to all her friends and supporters that her health is good and that she is as alert and focused as ever,” he said.
Ms Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest almost 20 years ago, in July 1989, as her party was campaigning in Burma’s first general election since a coup d’etat ushered in military rule in 1962. She was still being held incommunicado when the triumphant results were published. But the military regime refused to honour the victory, arresting and killing many of the party’s supporters and MPs and driving many more into exile.
Ms Suu Kyi’s last, brief interlude of freedom ended with a regime-sponsored attempt on her life in July 2003. She was briefly incarcerated in Insein Prison before being once again locked up in her decaying lakeside villa.
Since then her conditions of imprisonment have been far harsher than before. She has no telephone and cannot receive letters. In that sense, her arrest has brought a welcome breath of fresh air and solidarity from the outside world. “We were able to inform her of the support of the international community,” said Nyan Win, referring to calls by world leaders such as Gordon Brown for her release. “She has no radio or TV so she is really heartened to hear these things.”
Ms Suu Kyi is being held in the grounds of the prison, which is notorious for its squalid conditions and the abuse suffered by inmates. She was reported as saying her accommodation was “comfortable.” Mr Yettaw and Ms Suu Kyi’s two housekeepers and companions, a mother and daughter who have lived with her since 2003, are being tried together with her.
Nyan Win said the trial could last for three months. A diplomat commented: “The regime hates the world’s attention on this so they will try to kick it into the long grass and hope the interest fades.”
Burma: Two Suu Kyi lawyers disbarred-Irrawaddy
Two Suu Kyi Lawyers Dismissed from Bar
Min Lwin & The Associated Press
The Irrawaddy: May 16, 2009
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15657
Two of Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers, Aung Thein and Khin Maung Shein, were dismissed from the country’s bar by the Burmese military on Friday.
“Township magistrate officer U Aung Soe and some local authorities came and gave an order in which we are dismissed from the Burmese lawyer’s list,” Aung Thein told The Irrawaddy on Saturday.
Attorney Aung Thein confirmed on Saturday that he had been dismissed on Friday, a day after he had applied to represent Suu Kyi in her latest trial, which is set to begin on Monday.
Aung Thein has defended political activists in the past and was recently jailed for four months for contempt of court because of his strong advocacy on his clients’ behalf.
“The dismissal is not fair to us,” Aung Thein said. “We have served four months (in detention for contempt to the court).”
In November, Aung Thein and his close associate Khin Maung Shein were both sentenced to four months imprisonment for contempt of court. The authorities were prejudiced against lawyers who have defended political activists, said Aung Thein.
Their past clients include the prominent Buddhist monk Gambira, who was sentenced to prison following his leadership of the “Saffron Uprising” in 2007. Aung Thein ultimately resigned from that case, complaining that he was had not been allowed to prepare a proper defense.
U Aung Thein is a lawyer associated with Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy’s (NLD) legal advisory team.
On Thursday, authorities barred Aung Thein from entering Insein Prison where Suu Kyi is being detained. Kyi Win was allowed inside the prison.
The Thailand-based human rights group, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) (AAPP), released a statement on Saturday saying Aung Thein had his license to practice law revoked by the authorities on grounds that he did not abide by professional ethics.
In a statement, the AAPP said the action was a blatant attempt to damage the defense of Suu Kyi and her two caretakers and represents a pattern of harassment against lawyers who defend pro-democracy activists. There are currently eleven lawyers in prison across the country on charges associated with defense of activists.
Suu Kyi was charged on Thursday with violating the terms of her house arrest after her home was invaded by an American, John William Yettaw, 53, who also faces trial on charges he violated internal security laws.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize committee called for Suu Kyi’s immediate release.
“Her recent detention in prison is totally unacceptable. She has done nothing wrong,” said the statement from the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which rarely comments on past peace laureates.
The charges against Suu Kyi are widely seen as a pretext for the ruling junta to keep Suu Kyi detained beyond the 2010 national election, part of the junta’s so-called “roadmap to democracy,” which has been criticized as a ploy for the military regime to remain in power.
Despite sharp criticism and economic sanctions by the US, Europe and other countries, Burma’s generals have enjoyed the support of China and other Asian nations. They invariably march to their own tune and are likely to do so again in the prosecution of Suu Kyi, who they regard as their No 1 enemy.
The charges against Suu Kyi carry a penalty range of three to five years imprisonment.
Why did Missouri Mormon visit Suu Kyi?-LA Times
Why did Missouri man risk visit to Myanmar’s Nobel winner?
Saturday, May 16, 2009 | 12:01 a.m. CDT
Tim Johnston
Los Angeles Times: May 16, 2009
When John Yettaw of Falcon, Mo., slipped into the warm waters of a Rangoon lake last week and swam to the house of detained Myanmar democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi, he apparently had little idea of the potential ramifications.
Suu Kyi and Yettaw are now being held in Myanmar’s notorious Insein Prison, along with Suu Kyi’s two housekeepers and her doctor.
Suu Kyi, 63, has been under virtual house arrest for 13 of the 19 years since the ruling military junta refused to recognize her party’s overwhelming victory in the 1990 elections. She is not allowed to have visitors and could face a three- to five-year prison term because of Yettaw’s uninvited intrusion, according to opposition officials.
She could also be convicted of breaking a law requiring citizens to notify authorities if anyone other than a family member wants to stay overnight in their homes.
‘This wretched American’
“Everyone is very angry with this wretched American,” Suu Kyi’s attorney, Kyi Win, told reporters. “He is the cause of all these problems.”
Yettaw has been charged with immigration offenses and entering a restricted zone, which carries a three- to five-year sentence.
Yettaw, 53, has not had an opportunity to explain why he decided to visit Suu Kyi. He has told his family in Missouri that he tried to meet Suu Kyi last year, also by swimming across the lake, but that her staff stopped him.
“I think that’s what motivated him to go back,” his wife, Betty Yettaw, told reporters. “He thought he could be in and out.”
She said that before he left her and his four children, Yettaw had explained that he wanted to return to Asia to write a paper on forgiveness for a psychology course he was taking.
Opposing the new charges
Western leaders and other prominent figures have condemned the new charges against Suu Kyi. A group of politicians, entertainers and writers — including George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Madonna, Salman Rushdie, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Elie Wiesel — issued a statement Friday calling Suu Kyi ” the world’s only incarcerated Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.”
“Nineteen years ago, the Myanmar people chose Aung San Suu Kyi to be their next leader. And for most of those 19 years she has been kept under house arrest by the military junta that now runs the country,” the statement said.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that “if the 2010 elections are to have any semblance of credibility, (Suu Kyi) and all political prisoners must be freed to participate.” The top U.N. human rights official, Navanethem Pillay, called for her immediate release, saying, “I deplore Ms. Suu Kyi’s ongoing persecution.”
Also Friday, President Obama renewed U.S. sanctions against the Myanmar government, saying in a letter to Congress that its actions and policies “are hostile to U.S. interests and pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”
Like Afghanistan in the 1980s and East Timor in the 1990s, Myanmar — also known as Burma — stirs strong feelings on the part of the many foreigners who follow every twist and turn of the ruling junta’s long effort to strangle democracy.
She’s like a magnet
Aung Zaw, who edits the respected Irrawaddy newsmagazine from exile in northern Thailand, said Suu Kyi, with her combination of apparent physical fragility and steely moral resolve, “is like a magnet that has drawn a lot of people from the West, both intelligent and unintelligent.”
Minka Nijhuis, a Dutch journalist who has written two books about Myanmar, said she was not surprised by Yettaw’s actions.
“He fits the profile,” she said. “It is such a ‘Beauty and the Beast’ story, and it is very easy for people like him to identify with such a good cause.”
But Aung Zaw said sincerity and good intentions are not enough. “Some activists have done tremendous damage, either to individuals or to the movement, and the regime has exploited these activists,” he said.
Among the targets of his ire are two Britons, James Mawdsley, who was arrested in 1999 for distributing pamphlets attacking the junta, and Rachel Goldwyn, who sang a protest song in the streets of Rangoon, also in 1999. They were sentenced to 17 years and seven years, respectively, but between them spent less than a year in prison before they were released and expelled from the country.
Rights group demands freedom for Burma's political prisoners-Prachatai
FORUM-ASIA condemns new charges against Aung San Suu Kyi and demands ASEAN to seek the release of hers and all political prisoners immediately
Prachatai: May 18, 2009
http://www.prachatai.com/english/node/1216
The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), which represents 42 member organizations in Asia condemns the charges leveled against Burmese democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, by the military authorities. FORUM-ASIA calls for an unconditional and immediate release of Suu Kyi, her two aides and around 2,100 political prisoners and urges ASEAN to demand the military authorities to end Suu Kyi’s 13-year detention.
The new charges are said to be in connection with the recent intrusion of an American citizen, John William Yettaw, who swam across Inya Lake and entered the home of Suu Kyi uninvited. He was also not prevented from doing so by the guards. Suu Kyi allegedly failed to report to the authorities about the matter. According to Burmese’s State Protection law, it is mandatory to notify the military authorities about any overnight visitor and foreigners who spend the night in a Burmese home.
On 14 May, Suu Kyi and her two aides were taken from her home and sent to the notorious Inseon Prison on a charge of breaching the conditions of her house arrest order. They appeared before a special court and were charged under article 22 of the State Protection law. Their trial is scheduled for 18 May. The State Protection Act is frequently used against democratic activists. Other members of National League for Democracy (NLD) party have been imprisoned for similar offences.
We have received reports that Suu Kyi is in poor health and has recently been on an intravenous drip. Her doctors have been repeatedly prevented from giving her the care that she requires and her personal physician was arrested a few weeks ago.
“What happened to Suu Kyi is very upsetting. More over, the basis of the new charges is outrageous” said Yap Swee Seng, the Executive Director of FORUM-ASIA. He added that her imprisonment is illegal under international law.
Therefore, FORUM-ASIA strongly calls for ASEAN leaders to immediately take a firm stand by urging Burmese authorities to release Aung San Suu Kyi unconditionally, while demanding that they urgently respect the principles of rule of law, good governance, and democracy as stipulated in the ASEAN Charter, which entered into force on 15 December 2008, said Yap.
“The behavior and abuse of the military authorities is totally unacceptable and must be urgently terminated without delay. The regime must be held accountable. ASEAN country leaders have the responsibility to protect the rights of Burma People by sending an envoy immediately to Burma to ensure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. The Burmese government must observe the protection of human rights spelt out in the ASEAN Charter,” he stressed.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for almost 14 of the last 19 years at her home in Rangoon. Her house arrest contravenes Articles 9, 10 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the State Protection Act under which she was initially charged in 2003. This act allows for a maximum of five years’ detention, which means that she should have been released in 2008.
This incident is said to be a ploy of the Burmese authorities to prevent her participation in the coming state elections in March 2010. The authorities intend to prohibit any controversy in the elections by prolonging her detention and delaying her release.
Burma: Suu Kyi starts trial-AFP
Myanmar democracy icon Suu Kyi goes on trial
Agence France-Presses: May 15, 2009
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/world/143540/myanmar-democracy-icon-suu-kyi-goes-on-trial
Myanmar opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi went on trial amid tight security at a notorious prison Monday, facing another five years in detention on charges of harbouring a US man who swam to her home.
Dozens of supporters of the ailing Nobel Peace Prize laureate gathered near Insein prison for the hearing, as riot police set up barbed wire barricades and blocked all roads to the compound near Yangon, witnesses said.
Myanmar’s junta has ignored a storm of international protest to push ahead with charges that the 63-year-old violated the terms of her house arrest, under which she could also be barred from standing in elections due next year.
“The trial has started,” a Myanmar official told AFP on condition of anonymity, without giving any more details about the hearing which is being held behind closed doors.
Security forces barred the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany and Italy from the jail as they attempted to gain entry to the trial, a western diplomat said.
US national John Yettaw is also on trial over the incident earlier this month in which he used a pair of home-made flippers to swim across a lake to the residence where Aung San Suu Kyi is kept in virtual isolation.
A US embassy car entered the prison compound but a spokesman for the US embassy in Yangon was not immediately able to confirm whether Yettaw was receiving consular assistance.
The trial of Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent most of the last 19 years in detention, comes just days after she was imprisoned at a “guest house” inside the Insein prison compound on charges of breaching security laws.
Her lawyer said that she would protest her innocence.
“Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has studied the section of the law under which she was charged and says that she didn’t commit any crime,” lawyer Kyi Win told AFP. Daw is a term of respect in the Burmese language.
“She just felt sorry for this man (Yettaw) as he had leg cramps after he swam across the lake. That’s why she allowed him to stay,” Kyi Win said.
He said Yettaw had also come to the house in 2008 but that the two political assistants who live with Aung San Suu Kyi had asked him to go back, adding that her doctor had informed authorities about the earlier visit at the time.
The two assistants — who have formerly been described as maids — would also be on trial, Kyi Win said.
It was not immediately clear how long the trial would take, with estimates from lawyers and rights groups ranging from one day to several weeks.
The junta, headed by reclusive Senior General Than Shwe, has kept Aung San Suu Kyi in detention for a total of 13 years since 1990, when it refused to recognise her party’s landslide victory in Myanmar’s last elections.
Her latest six-year period of detention was due to expire on May 27, but Yettaw’s visit has apparently provided the generals with the ammunition they need to extend her detention past the 2010 elections.
Critics say the polls are a sham that the junta hopes to use to gain legitimacy and consolidate its grip on power, with a constitution forced through last year enshrining a role for the military in any administration.
The constitution also bars Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming president as she had children with her British husband Michael Aris, who died in 1999, and it also prevents those convicted of criminal offences from standing in elections.
Analysts say the junta’s determination to keep her locked up shows that they still perceive the soft-spoken activist as a major threat to their iron rule over Myanmar, which has been controlled by the military since 1962.
The United States has led calls for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi in recent days and US President Barack Obama formally extended sanctions against Myanmar on Friday.
There has however been no official statement from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member. Asian powers China and India have also stayed silent.
Suu Kyi's ordeal-Bangkok Post
EDITORIAL
An ordeal without end
Bangkok Post: May 16, 2009
http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/16772/an-ordeal-without-end
The renewed persecution of Burmese democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has brought an angry and troubled response from world leaders. The outrage should come as no surprise to those who ordered her transfer and incarceration in Rangoon’s Insein prison on a charge of violating her house arrest. Whether they will see reason and put an end to this continuing charade is another matter. We can only hope that wiser heads prevail.
It seems more than coincidence that this fresh trial, which could carry a five-year jail term, has been ordered just two weeks before the one-year extension to her years of house arrest was due to end. Alarmingly, it has come at a time when the 63-year-old Nobel laureate is suffering from low blood pressure, dehydration and other health problems, not helped by the absence of her doctor who was taken away for questioning earlier this week.
The charges against her are bizarre and illogical. They concern the actions of an American intruder at her home whose motives in allegedly swimming across a lake to reach her house are unknown. What is known is that she asked him to leave and that the Burmese authorities are responsible for security at the dilapidated lakeside home to which she had been confined as their prisoner. Yet her jailers are not the ones on trial. Surely they must realise that any intruder could have posed a threat to the person they were supposed to be guarding.
The events currently unfolding make it clear that the junta is determined to ensure that the elections it plans for next year as part of its ”roadmap to democracy” suffer no disruption even if this involves a total disregard for human rights. Going to such extremes also lends credence to widely-held beliefs that the 2010 elections are merely a sham designed to perpetuate the status quo and entrench the military in power.
The Burmese authorities have already disqualified Mrs Suu Kyi from participating in the elections because her late husband was a foreigner. Now her very liberty appears to be considered a daunting threat to the state. Do the authorities not realise that by continually courting international condemnation and inflaming public opinion in their zeal to think up new ways to confine and harass her, they are taking a greater risk than that entailed in simply granting this courageous lady the freedom she deserves. The overwhelming paranoia and xenophobia which governs the junta’s actions has already led to Burma being considered an embarrassment within Asean, ostracised by much of the world, condemned to economic sanctions and branded a human rights violator. Only in Burma could a pro-democracy icon whose party won a national election in 1990 be considered a threat to democracy.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva says that Asean, currently chaired by Thailand, is ”concerned” by the latest events in Burma. Singapore and Indonesia have echoed his words. Other world leaders and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have gone further, some much further. This is no surprise. Mrs Suu Kyi has earned respect for her courage, humanitarian ideals and quiet dignity. The world’s most famous political prisoner is not known and revered as ‘The Lady’ for nothing.
Today Aung San Suu Kyi marks 13 years and 204 days spent in detention with another trial starting on Monday and no end to her ordeal in sight. A sad day, but one which carries the certainty that no matter what they subject her to, ‘The Lady’ will continue to give hope and inspiration to the people of Burma.
Thailand supports Suu Kyi…finally-The Nation
[FACT comments: Better late than never!]
Thailand urges Burma to end Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention
Supalak Ganjankhundee
The Nation: May 16, 2009
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/16/regional/regional_30102800.php
Thailand yesterday joined the international community in calling for the end of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention as her current term of house arrest expires late this month.
“As the period for the detention is about to came to an end, we hope that there is no more detention”, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said at a press conference.
The Burmese military junta decided to try Suu Kyi on Monday after American John Yettaw swam across Inya Lake to her residence in Rangoon.
The current term of her house arrest, imposed since 2003, expires on May 27, and her lawyer planned to appeal for her release.
Aung San Suu Kyi could be given a five- years jail term if convicted on the charge of violating her house arrest, which bars her from meeting with outsiders.
Kasit urged the junta to be transparent in its handling of the case.
As chairman of Asean, Kasit said the release of Aung San Suu Kyi would benefit Burma’s process of national reconciliation and political reform.
“In connection with the general election next year, we would like to see inclusiveness and the release of political prisoners, he said.
“So I want to repeat what has been the common position of Asean and for the common wish for the betterment and happiness of the Myanmar [Burmese] people,” he said.
However, Thailand and Asean would not put pressure to the military junta to get Suu Kyi released, he said.
Senior Asean officials are to meet next week in Phuket to seek if they can do anything to help “rescue” Suu Kyi, he said. Asean ambassadors in Rangoon will also have a meeting to monitor the situation.
Thailand and other Asean countries will dispatch representatives to attend the Burmese court’s trail if Burmese authorities allow them to do so, Kaset said.
London-based Amnesty International urged the United Nations Security Council, China, Japan and Asean to take immediate action to intervene for the release of Suu Kyi from the notorious Insein prison.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has also demanded the immediate release of Suu Kyi, is expected to call Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan and Kasit as Asean chairman to consult discuss Suu Kyi’s situation, Kasit said.
The United Kingdom, Indonesia and United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon have also called for the unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Asked if Thailand or Asean would lobby Beijing to put pressure on the junta, Kasit said China also had a responsibility to support political development in Burma.
“We all have responsibilities, as Asia-Pacific fellows, to see Burma become a progressive society with happiness,” he said.
Burma: Only three ASEAN members support Suu Kyi-Bangkok Post
Burma complaints build
Three Asean members oppose Suu Kyi charges
Thanida Tansubhapol
Bangkok Post: May 16, 2009
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/16756/burma-complaints-build
Three Asean members – Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia – have raised concerns about Burma’s move to lodge new charges against detained Aung San Suu Kyi, and called for her release.
Burma, itself a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, has lodged fresh charges against the Burmese democracy icon, stemming from an incident in which an American swam across a lake to stay at her house.
The move by the three countries is seen as unusual. By convention, Asean members do not intervene in each other’s internal affairs.
Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said yesterday all countries were concerned about the credibility of any Burmese probe into the US man’s action.
“What we would like to know is what the truth is, what the intent of that US man is, how could he pass the security guards surrounding Mrs Suu Kyi’s house, who is behind this and is there some sort of conspiracy?” Mr Kasit said.
“I don’t know. But I think the facts should be told to the public.”
Mrs Suu Kyi and her two maids will go before the court on Monday.
Mr Kasit hoped the process would be transparent and Mrs Suu Kyi’s period for detention would not be extended further.
“We would like to see Mrs Suu Kyi and political prisoners released, as reflected in the Asean chairman’s statement at the 14th Asean summit in Cha-am last March,” he said.
Mrs Suu Kyi is facing five years in jail on charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest after a bizarre incident in which a US man swam to her off-limits lakeside house in Rangoon.
The incident came just a few days before the expiry of her most recent six-year detention order om May 27.
She faces a new trial on Monday, and the jail term if convicted of the new charges would keep her behind bars past an election due next year.
The elections are part of a so-called “roadmap” to restore democracy that the country’s ruling junta has pledged to adopt.
International critics have said the process will be a sham if she and her party are excluded.
Thailand is rotating chairman of Asean.
Mr Kasit said Thai ambassador to Rangoon Bansarn Bunnag has been assigned to consult other Asean ambassadors based in Burma about the Asean position.
The US embassy in Bangkok has also contacted the Thai government and told it that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would call the Asean secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan or Mr Kasit about the situation.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Friday expressed concern about the health of Mrs Suu Kyi and the country’s long-delayed “roadmap” to democracy.
Mr Abhisit said the 10-nation bloc had been urging Burma to adopt an inclusive political process.
“Clearly her health condition is of concern, and that should be a concern for everybody,” he said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Hong Kong.
Meanwhile, Singapore said yesterday it was dismayed after Burma lodged new charges against Mrs Suu Kyi.
“We reiterate the call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. We are also concerned about recent reports on her poor health,” said the Singapore foreign ministry.
Indonesia also urged Burma to release Mrs Suu Kyi and drop the new “arbitrary” charges against her.
“The Indonesian government is very concerned about the arbitrary detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and we are hoping for a legal process so we know the basis for her detention,” foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.”The charges against her are not appropriate.”
EARLIER REPORT by AFP:
Rights groups slam Asean countries for their silence after the Burmese military junta brings trumped up charges against an ailing Aung San Suu Kyi, shown some years ago in this portrait on a protester’s placard.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to use its influence with its most troublesome member, and said that China, Japan and India should also use their weight.
Asean ambassadors met in Rangoon on Friday to hammer out a statement on the group’s perennial problem country, but the 10-member bloc has historically shied away from criticising the ruling generals.
Indonesia and Singapore were the only members to directly call for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and condemn the charges, which state that she breached the terms of her house arrest when a US man intruded on her lakeside house.
“The charges against her are not appropriate. Why should Aung San Suu Kyi be detained when it was the American national who swam across the waters to her house?” Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said in Jakarta.
Singapore’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it was “dismayed” by the charges against the 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and also called for her release.
In Bangkok, Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said only that his country “hope(s) that she should be released”, adding that Thailand was “very, very concerned” about the possibility that Burma could extend her detention.
Aung San Suu Kyi faces a five-year jail term if found guilty at her trial, which will be held in Rangoon’s notorious Insein prison, where she was taken on Thursday from her home.
She has spent 13 of the last 19 years in detention, most of them in virtual isolation at the sprawling lakeside property where she received the bizarre visit from US national John Yettaw last week that led to the charges.
Mr Kasit said Thailand’s ambassador in Rangoon would meet with his Asean counterparts to discuss a statement by the bloc, which has a policy of non-interference in members’ internal affairs.
Senior officials from Asean and its six dialogue partners — China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand — would also meet on the sidelines of a regular meeting in the tourist island of Phuket in Thailand on Tuesday, he said.
Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone voiced “deep concern” over the new charges, local media reported. Japan is the top donor to Burma among the OECD’s major economies.
But there was silence from the rest of the region. China, one of Burma’s closest allies and a major consumer of its vast natural resources, remained silent on the charges against Aung San Suu Kyi, as did India.
London-based Amnesty International called on the UN Security Council, “notably China and Japan, and Asean countries, (to) urgently intervene to secure Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from Insein prison”.
“They are best placed to bring the necessary pressure to bear on the Burma government,” it said in a statement.
Human Rights Watch, based in New York, made a similar appeal.
“China, India, Singapore, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries should be calling for a genuine and participatory political process in Burma, which means serious public pressure for the release of political opponents,” said Elaine Pearson, the group’s deputy Asia director.
“Aung San Suu Kyi’s latest arrest shows how their silence simply encourages more contempt for basic freedoms,” she said in a statement.
Suu Kyi: Coincidence or conspiracy?-AI
Aung San Suu Kyi: Coincidence or conspiracy?
Chris Robinson
Amnesty International: May 15, 2009
We thought we’d seen it all.
Last night Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested on trumped-up charges just two weeks before her house detention was due to expire. Coincidence? Or a cynical pretext by the military junta to put Burma’s leading democratic figure behind bars?
The freedom of the Burmese people now hangs in the balance and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – made up of the countries neighbouring Burma – are crucially placed to make representations inside the country to prevent this desperate situation from deteriorating further.
Aung San Suu Kyi was charged for breaching the conditions of her 19-year house arrest because an uninvited American man – identified as Mr John Yettaw – swam across a lake to her home in Rangoon and stayed there in secrecy for two days. She’s being held responsible for someone turning up at her door when she had no power to stop him.
And what’s more, why did the military fail to provide enough security to keep her safe from an intruder? The forthcoming trial on Monday smacks of a baseless attempt by the military junta to keep Aung San Suu Kyi in jail.
Please send your email to ASEAN now calling for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi
Prior to her trial Ms Suu Kyi has been taken to the maximum-security Insein prison in Rangoon where a number of other dissidents are held. She has recently been reported to suffer from low blood pressure and dehydration and she is not in a healthy state to fight her cause. It’s up to us to stand in her corner and fight for the freedom of the Burmese people.
Thank you for your efforts at this crucial moment in Burma’s history.
With an outpouring of support before the trial on Monday we have a unique opportunity to give a voice to the people who need their democratic leader now more than ever.
Claire Mallinson
National Director
Amnesty International Australia
PS. Aung San Suu Kyi represents thousands of political prisoners detained in Burma who also need our help. If you have sent your email already, please forward this email to at least two friends and maximise our impact during the next few days.
Burma's lessons from history-Irrawaddy
CULTURE
The Despot and the Diplomat
Neil Lawrence
The Irrawaddy: September 2008
http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=14152
The experiences of Capt Michael Symes, the first official British emissary to the Burmese court, offer lessons for diplomats dealing with the country’s current rulers.
MILITARY-ruled Burma is surely one of the world’s least rewarding assignments for a United Nations diplomat. Visiting envoys are routinely refused contact with the country’s dictator, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, in his remote capital of Naypyidaw, the “Royal Abode.” Months or years may pass with no signs of progress before an envoy finally abandons his mission in frustration—and the regime claims another victory in its war of wills against the outside world.
Much has been made of Than Shwe’s monarchical pretensions, and in his approach to diplomacy it is not difficult to see the influence of rulers of an earlier age, when Burmese kings believed they could keep the world at bay by treating foreign emissaries with studied disdain. Indeed, any diplomat who wishes to understand the mindset of Burma’s current rulers should probably go back at least as far as Bodawpaya, the king who perfected a brand of diplomacy still practiced in Burma today.
Bodawpaya (1745-1819) ruled Burma from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th. His father, Alaungpaya, had founded the Konbaung dynasty when Bodawpaya was 7 years old and died when he was 15. In 1782, at the age of 37, Bodawpaya deposed and executed his nephew to become the sixth king of his line.
A ruler of Napoleonic ambitions, Bodawpaya set out to retake Ayutthaya, the Siamese capital, where his father had died trying to re-establish Burmese rule. He failed repeatedly. “Nothing but the peaceful disposition of the Siamese monarch saved the Burmese empire from total subjection,” wrote Father San Germano, an Italian missionary who lived in Rangoon through 25 years of Bodawpaya’s 37-year reign.
He did, however, have greater success in vanquishing the coastal kingdom of Arakan, located on the Bay of Bengal southwest of his newly established capital of Amarapura, near Mandalay. This proved to be a fateful move, as it extended Burmese territory to the borders of British India, setting it on a collision course that would, a century later, see the complete dissolution of the Burmese monarchy.
Formal ties between the Burmese and the British had been suspended since the end of Alaunpaya’s reign, when the Burmese—at the instigation of French rivals for influence—carried out a massacre on a British trade settlement on the island of Negrais in 1759. But in 1795, with thousands of Arakanese fleeing into their territory and concerns about French ambitions in Burma still strong, the British decided to send a diplomatic mission to the court of Amarapura.
This decision set the stage for an episode that makes UN efforts to mitigate the egregious abuses of Burma’s current rulers seem almost productive by comparison. The chosen envoy, Capt Michael Symes, was confident that he would succeed in restoring amicable relations with the Burmese court; instead, he spent more than two months waiting for an audience with a king who would not deign to speak to him.
The British diplomat’s reception was “a strange mixture of friendly hospitality and studied rudeness,” according to historian D. G. E. Hall. Permitted to travel only as far as the opposite bank of the Irrawaddy River from Amarapura, he was informed that the king was “at a country residence named Meengoung, where he was erecting a magnificent temple to their divinity Gaudma [Gotama Buddha].”
Symes, who had arrived in mid-July, was told that he would have to wait until August 30 before he could cross the river to the royal capital. So he spent the next month and a half waiting for the Emperor who had “run away from Siam [to decide] whether it was consistent with his dignity to receive such a visitor or not,” as historian V. C. Scott O’Connor wrote in a memorable account of the incident.
In his own words, Symes described the Burmese court as “punctilious and haughty, even to insufferable arrogance.” But the real insult came when, on the assigned day, he (along with a delegation from a neighboring province of China) was permitted to cross the river and enter the palace, only to find that the king had not seen fit to make an appearance.
Dismayed, Symes penned a letter demanding, in firm yet diplomatic terms, a proper audience with the king. On September 30, his request was granted. “His Majesty … looked at us attentively, but did not honour us with any verbal notice, or speak at all,” he wrote of the hard-won encounter.
Unwilling to contemplate the possibility that his dignity had been further slighted, Symes persuaded himself that his efforts had paid off.
And so he returned to his superiors brimming with satisfaction at the success of his mission, which produced a list of trade concessions and permission to establish an official British presence in Rangoon to facilitate bilateral relations.
Capt Hiram Cox was duly sent to Burma as the English Resident the following year, only to find that the Burmese had in the meantime perfected what Hall called their “technique of humiliation.” He left his post in frustration in early 1798, and a year later he was dead—not of mortification at the hands of the Burmese, but of disease contracted while superintending relief measures for the 50,000 Arakanese refugees who had flooded into the Chittagong District of British-controlled Bengal.
Symes later returned to Amarapura for a second attempt to settle his country’s differences with the Burmese; but his hosts made it clear that they would accept nothing less than the complete expulsion of the Arakanese, who they regarded as their property. Symes abandoned his earlier false optimism and reported back to his superiors that war with the Burmese might be inevitable.
But war did not ensue, and Bodawpaya, who would live another 20 years, no doubt concluded that his policy of diplomatic obstruction had put the British in their place. This underestimation of British power led to his decision in the final years of his reign to invade Assam, and this emboldened his successor, Bagyidaw, to embark on adventures that would very soon culminate in the first Anglo-Burmese war—and the beginning of the end of Burmese independence.
Than Shwe may or may not be a modern-day Bodawpaya; but it is clear that the greatest threat facing Burma today is his belief that he can rule as he pleases, without regard for world opinion. Like Bodawpaya, he has come to this conclusion largely through his success in repelling diplomatic attempts to constrain his behavior. And he has done this by forcing a long line of envoys to either give up in disgust or—like Symes at the end of his first mission—to portray their efforts as a success rather than concede defeat.
The former response is forgivable; but the latter is a disservice to a country that is still struggling to emerge from the nightmare of its history because of the delusional dreams of a despot.
FACTback - Freedom Against Censorship Thailand (Backup) 