News & Articles on Burma, Friday, 10 July 2009
Jul 10th, 2009
Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial to conclude on July 24 – Summary
Capturing the truth of Burma’s struggle with people power
Gloom in Rangoon as Suu Kyi Trial Resumes
Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial resumes in Myanmar
Myanmar ophans flee to uncertain refuge in Thailand
Burma and North Korea, Brothers in Arms
Neither war nor peace: The future of the cease-fire agreements in Burma
Disillusioned in Burma
Suu Kyi trial to resume
Aung San Suu Kyi Held in “Gulag-like Conditions”
U.N. action needed against Burma’s junta
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial to conclude on July 24 – Summary
Posted : Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:17:45 GMT
Author : DPA
Category : Legal (General)
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Yangon – The trial of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will conclude on July 24 after hearing the final testimony Friday, Suu Kyi’s defence lawyer said. “The final arguments of the prosecution and defence have been scheduled for July 24, starting at 2 pm,” Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi’s lawyers, said. The verdict will be issued on an unnamed date thereafter.
On Friday, a special court set up in Insein Prison heard the testimony of lawyer Khin Moe Moe, a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party.
In her seven-hour testimony Khin Moe Moe argued that Suu Kyi’s detention was unlawful, because it was based on the 1974 constitution, which is now defunct, having been replaced by the 2008 charter, Nyan Win told reporters.
Suu Kyi was jailed in May, 2003, on charges of threatening national security by leading her party members in central Myanmar that month. She and her followers were assaulted by pro-government thugs, leading to her arrest.
She was sentenced to house detention, and now stands accused of breaking that detention by allowing US national John William Yettaw to swim to her lakeside home-cum-prison in Yangon on May 3 and stay there for two nights without alerting the authorities.
Khin Moe Moe argued that the detention was based on the 1974 constitution, but that was replaced by the 2008 charter, which has no such clause on threats to national security.
She was one of two witnesses permitted to testify for the defence while prosecutors were allowed 14.
Suu Kyi’s defence team met with the jailed Nobel peacelaureate Wednesday to brief her on the trial.
Nyan Win, who is the official spokesman for the NLD, also informed Suu Kyi that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had been denied a meeting with her by Myanmar’s military junta during his brief trip to Myanmar July 3-4.
“She made no remark on that,” Nyan Win said.
Myanmar’s military regime refused Ban’s request to meet Suu Kyi on the grounds that she was currently on trial and such a visit might prejudice the judiciary.
The excuse was deemed ridiculous because it is well-known that Myanmar’s judiciary does not operate independently of the junta.
Ban said he was “very disappointed” by the refusal and described it as a “missed opportunity” for the regime.
Khin Moe Moe was originally scheduled to testify on July 3, but the court session was postponed.
A special court was set up at Insein Prison to try Suu Kyi, beginning May 11, for breaking the terms of her detention by allegedly permitting Yettaw to stay at her house.
Critics have accused the military junta of using the case as a pretext to keep Suu Kyi in jail during a politically sensitive period leading up to a general election planned for next year.
That election would be the first since Suu Kyi’s NLD won the 1990 general election by a landslide. It has, however, been blocked from power by Myanmar’s junta for the past 19 years.
Meanwhile, Suu Kyi has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention.
The new trial of Suu Kyi, whose most recent six-year sentence under house detention expired May 27, has sparked a chorus of protests from world leaders and even statements of concern from its regional allies in the Association of South-East Asian Nations.
Copyright, respective author or news agency http://www.earthtimes.org/
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Capturing the truth of Burma’s struggle with people power
Published Date: 10 July 2009
By Shereen Lowe
In a summer that’s filled with action-packed blockbusters and the biggest Hollywood stars, there’s one film that stands out as unique.
Burma VJ has already captured the attention of the highest office in the UK after it became the first film to premiere at 10 Downing Street in a private screening hosted by the Prime Minister’s wife, Sarah Brown.
Shot on small, undercover handycams, the film reveals the powers of citizen journalism and resonates with the situation in Iran.
“Burma VJ is certainly about citizen journalists as a phenomenon, and what one person who’s there at the right time can do to set the world agenda,” says its Danish maker, Anders Ostergaard.
“This is not just going on in Burma, you are seeing it today now in Iran. The coverage of the demonstrations that are going on there is being sent around the world and viewed on YouTube.
“So it’s very much a film about this new phenomenon that technology is making the biggest stretch. It empowers the people to have access to all these things.”
Unlike anything else you’ll see in a cinema this summer, Burma VJ was made under the most challenging circumstances. Freedom of speech in Burma is almost non-existent after democratic rule ended in 1962. Its citizens are kept under a tight rein because the country, which is officially known as Myanmar, is under the strict control of a military junta, governed by the State Peace and Development Council and led by general Than Shwe.
The repressive regime ensures that the government-controlled media suffers from censorship, while many foreign press are banned from entering the country.
Anyone who steps out of line and opposes the government risks their lives, facing torture and life imprisonment. Yet despite this, Ostergaard managed to gather a handful of undercover local video journalists (VJs) from Democratic Voice of Burma, a non-profit organisation providing uncensored news about the country, led by “Joshua”, to compile coverage for his film.
Filmed over the course of three years, the documentary brings audiences close to the situation in the closed country as they document events, including the violent mass protests of September 2007 by the Burmese public and monks, who are normally apolitical.
For Joshua, it was always the urge for change that spurred him to get involved.
“If we want to be free, we have to do something,” he says. “I was a political activist before I became a journalist. I was just 16 years old. We are not only trying to change the regime, but also trying to build up a democratic society. So, in the battle to fight for and build up a democratic nation, media is the most important to take back and win.”
It may be hard to keep up with Burma’s daily happenings, but one person who hits the Western headlines is Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of the opposition to the country’s military government, who has been under strict house arrest since 1989. Now awaiting trial for violating the terms of her lengthy house arrest, he could face five years in prison and the case has caused global outrage.
“History had taught us that sometimes the impossible is possible,” says Ostergaard.
“Even Burma’s political allies are beginning to put pressure on the country.We never give up hope, what’s the alternative to hope?”
# Burma VJ is out on Jul 14. www.burmavjmovie.com and www.burmanet.org
http://www.yorkshirepost.co.
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Gloom in Rangoon as Suu Kyi Trial Resumes
By JOHN HEILPRIN / AP WRITER Friday, July 10, 2009
RANGOON — Along the shores of artificial Inya Lake, the empty compound of Aung San Suu Kyi lies within plain sight as couples stroll the path. Her home also is a curious attraction to onlookers from a hotel a minute’s walk away.
But it is her absence from it that has been on people’s minds lately in and around Rangoon—a hub of commerce and scholarship and the epicenter of anti-government sentiment—with the trial of the pro-democracy leader set to resume Friday.
A Buddhist monk, right, carries lotus at Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda. Buddhist devotees go to the temples and monasteries on the full moon day of ‘Waso,’ traditional Buddhist calendar of Burma, which falls on July, 6 to take sabbath and do meritorious deeds to mark the day when Buddha preached His First Sermon over 2500 years ago. (Photo: AP)
The failure of visiting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to gain a meeting with the opposition leader last weekend or win her release seems to have only intensified widespread feelings of gloom and frustration, though only brief interviews were possible without raising suspicions in this police state.
The trial of Suu Kyi, who turned 64 in the city’s Insein Prison last month, had been postponed during the UN chief’s visit.
There had been some hope that intervention by the international community might have avoided the continuation of the Nobel Prize laureate’s trial. She faces trumped-up charges that resulted from a bizarre incident involving an American who swam to her home across the artificial lake, a popular place for leisurely walks and sailing.
“I will never see real democracy flourish in Myanmar [Burma]. Not in my lifetime. We live in a hopeless situation where even the UN secretary-general fails to nudge the stubborn regime,” said U Hla Shwe, a 72-year old retired lawyer.
The New Light of Myanmar reported on July 5 that junta leader Snr-Gen Than Shwe denied the UN secretary-general’s request for a prison visit because “the case is being heard freely and fairly, so they have no right to arrange a meeting between the UNSG and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.” ”Daw” is a term of respect.
Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail on charges of violating the terms of her long-standing house arrest, after the uninvited American man, also imprisoned at Insein, swam to her tightly guarded lakeside home and stayed two days. He made the same swim last year.
Her defense will call a second witness Friday. Then Suu Kyi’s defense plans to ask the court to give it sufficient time—about a week—to prepare for closing arguments. A separate date is expected for the court to deliver the verdict, which could still be appealed.
Her supporters and human rights groups see the trial as an excuse for the government to throw her back in jail, now that they’ve reached the legal limit on detaining her. She has spent nearly 14 of the last 20 years in detention, mostly under house arrest.
It has been two decades since the military refused to hand over control to a civilian government despite Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy winning an extraordinary landslide victory in May 1990. Burma has been under military rule since 1962.
An editor of a local news magazine, who did not want to be named for fear of retaliation, said, “I had thought that the government was eager to hold all inclusive elections at least to give some credibility to the elections. But after Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was put on trial, I realize that the government was not sincere with the intention.”
Since the referendum last year, when the junta pushed through a 92 percent vote to affirm a new constitution despite the devastation and disorder of Cyclone Nargis, despair set in that anyone’s vote would ever count. Ban’s visit did nothing to alleviate that.
“The government is going to hold the elections to cement their power and they will see to it that they get what they want, so my vote won’t make any difference,” said a 44-year old school teacher named Lei Lei.
Ban said Than Shwe indicated he might finally hand over control and become a civilian himself next year after an election is held. Some people hold out a glimmer of hope that might actually happen.
“Now everybody wants to have democracy—most of the people,” said a 27-year-old Burmese man who, like many under the watchful eye of the military regime, did not want to be identified for fear harm would come to his family. “Maybe it will take two to three years.”
Even as hopes dim for Suu Kyi’s release and for a freely elected government, some people won’t give up trying.
“I am skeptical that we will ever see change in the country. I will continue fighting for our rights working as a citizen journalist,” said 25-year-old Zaw Zaw, who said he reports for an exiled anti-government media group. “It is dangerous working as a CJ and I am fearful all the time when I might get caught.”
Copyright © 2008 Irrawaddy Publishing Group | www.irrawaddy.org
http://www.irrawaddy.org/
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Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial resumes in Myanmar
AP: Fri Jul 10, 1:06 am ET
YANGON, Myanmar – Riot police deployed outside Myanmar’s main prison Friday as the trial of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi resumed, a week after the ruling generals blocked efforts by the U.N. chief to save her from a possible five-year prison term.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days.
Khin Moe Moe, a lawyer and a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, was scheduled to appear as a defense witness during Friday’s session, which a Myanmar official said restarted Friday inside Yangon’s Insein prison where Suu Kyi is being held.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Suu Kyi’s local supporters, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year.
Suu Kyi has been in detention for nearly 14 of the last 20 years, mostly at her Yangon residence.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, on an official visit to Myanmar last Friday and Saturday, failed to gain Suu Kyi’s release or even visit her in prison.
Ban said Myanmar’s junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe told him repeatedly that “he really wanted to agree to my request” to see her but because Suu Kyi was on trial he did not want to be seen as interfering with the judicial process — or being pressured by the outside world.
“I am deeply disappointed that they have missed a very important opportunity,” Ban said last weekend.
Also being tried on the same charges are two women members of Suu Kyi’s party, who were her sole companions while under house arrest. The American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri, is charged with trespassing.
The mostly closed-door trial started May 18. The court at first allowed only one of four defense witnesses to take the stand, while approving 23 prosecution witnesses, of whom 14 took the stand, according to Suu Kyi’s lawyers.
On appeal, the Yangon Divisional Court ruled that Khin Moe Moe also could be heard but maintained the disqualification of prominent journalist and former political prisoner Win Tin and party vice chairman Tin Oo, who is under house arrest.
Security around Insein prison was tight as usual with roads leading to the prison blocked with barb-wire barricades manned by police. Truck loads of riot police were also deployed around the prison facility.
About 100 Suu Kyi supporters gathered, as they have during earlier court sessions, to give her support, sitting and standing as close as they could to the prison gates.
The defense has not contested the basic facts of the case but argues the relevant law has been misapplied by the authorities. They also assert that any intrusion was the responsibility of the security forces guarding the house.
Yettaw has pleaded not guilty and explained in court that he had a dream that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and he had gone to warn her. Family and friends have said he was working on a book and wished to interview her. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/
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Myanmar ophans flee to uncertain refuge in Thailand
AFP
by Claire Truscott Claire Truscott
THA SONG YANG, Thailand (AFP) – A sudden offensive against ethnic Karen rebels by Myanmar’s military junta has caused what aid groups say is the biggest exodus of refugees from Myanmar since 1997, with some 4,000 people fleeing for safety since the start of June.
Just weeks ago the group of 96 destitute orphans fled their children’s home in Myanmar to the sound of mortar shells and crossed into Thailand.
With camps in Thailand already home to 135,000 refugees from the six-decade conflict between mainly-Buddhist Myanmar’s junta and the Christian Karen, soliders bundled the new arrivals into the Safe Haven orphanage in this frontier village.
Thai orphanage boss Tasanee Keereepraneed watches over children from Myanmar tending to toddlers not much younger than themselves — refugees from one of the world’s longest conflicts.
But Tasanee, 49, the orphanage’s self-styled “Big Mama”, readily took them on along with a separate group of displaced families who are being provided with food and medicine by local aid groups.
“The children look after each other and take care of themselves. The older ones teach the younger ones,” says Tasanee. “They have to grow up very quickly.”
The teenagers smear white powder on younger faces for protection against the hot sun, before cosseting them under a huge tarpaulin tent. Soon the clouds gather and intense seasonal rain beats down.
Listless children sleep to pass the time, while others sit mending broken toys or try to play marbles on the sodden earth next to the Moei river, in the shadow of soaring limestone cliffs and dense foliage.
“They do not have a school, they do not have a place to stay because they had to run from the attacks,” says Tasanee.
With no parents to take care of them, only a handful of teachers — none older than 22 themselves — were left to brighten the mood with a guitar and a few traditional Karen songs.
The long war between the Karen National Liberation Army and the Myanmar military, backed by Karen defectors paid off by the regime, may finally be headed for its endgame.
Myanmar government forces have taken new territory in Pa-an district and the Ler Her Per camp in Myanmar for the internally displaced, as the rebels fight with inferior weaponry and manpower using landmines and ambushes.
Families fleeing the recent fighting have ended up at seven makeshift camp sites in Thailand, one of which is the Mae Usu village close by the orphanage.
There, 1,100 people are gathered at the side of a muddy path. Men hurriedly cut bamboo poles with machetes to erect temporary homes that will provide little protection from the wet season.
A 32-year-old mother-of-two who goes by just one name, Malay, sits in a bamboo hut breastfeeding her baby while her blind mother-in-law rocks over a hot stove of water behind her.
“It was very difficult coming because I can only carry the baby and my husband carried his mother. We had no food to bring with us because we couldn’t carry it,” she said.
But they would rather be here than at home where the men say they are regularly forced to work for the state army as minesweepers and porters — protecting soldiers from landmines in their path and carrying their food and ammunition.
A 40-year-old farmer, Mgheh, travelled with his four children, aged six to 14, and is sharing the shelter with Malay.
“We left because we were forced to work and we heard the sound of the fighting around my village. When it’s safe we’ll go back but I don’t know when. Right now we’ll just stay right here,” he said.
Women face equal horrors in Myanmar, where in early June local aid groups said two teenage girls — one carrying her unborn child — were raped and killed by government troops.
Analysts say the timing of the latest violence is aimed at ridding the border of the last vestiges of rebel activity before the junta holds national elections next year, having made peace pacts with some 27 other ethnic groups.
But these wandering families told AFP they want nothing of politics, and seek only a peaceful return to village life.
“I just heard the noise and saw them (soldiers) by my own eyes… I heard they are taking over all the villages and I don’t understand any of it… I’m only a simple farmer,” said 46-year-old Soe Bohhto.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/
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* OPINION ASIA
* JULY 10, 2009
Burma and North Korea, Brothers in Arms
An alliance that threatens the Asia-Pacific region and farther-flung shores, too.
By AUNG ZAW From today’s Wall Street Journal Asia.
The North Korean ship that tried to steam to Burma last month isn’t the only problem facing the U.S. and its allies. There’s a much broader military relationship growing between the two pariah states — one that poses a growing threat to stability in Asia-Pacific.
A government report leaked by a Burmese official last month shed new light on these ties. It described a Memorandum of Understanding between Burma and North Korea signed during a secret visit by Burmese officials to Pyongyang in November 2008. The visit was the culmination of years of work. Diplomatic relations between the two countries were cut in 1983 following a failed assassination attempt by North Korean agents on the life of South Korean President Chun Doo Hwan while he was visiting Rangoon. The attack cost 17 Korean lives and Burma cut off ties.
One of the first signs of warming relations was a barter agreement between the two countries that lasted from 2000 to 2006 and saw Burma receive between 12 and 16 M-46 field guns and as many as 20 million rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition from North Korea, according to defense analyst Andrew Selth of Griffith University in Australia. In exchange, Burma bartered food and rice.
The two countries formally re-established diplomatic relations in April 2007. After that, the North Korean ship the Kang Nam — the same ship that recently turned away from Burma after being followed by the U.S. navy — made a trip to Burma’s Thilawa port. Western defense analysts concluded that the ship carried conventional weapons and missiles to Burma.
This laid the ground for the MoU signed in November, when Shwe Mann, the regime’s third-most powerful figure, made a secret visit to North Korea, according to the leaked report. Shwe Mann is the chief of staff of the army, navy and air force, and the coordinator of Special Operations. He spent seven days in Pyongyang, traveling via China. His 17-member delegation received a tour around Pyongyang and Myohyang, where secret tunnels have been built into mountains to shelter aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons.
The MoU he signed formalizes the military cooperation between the two countries. According to the terms of the document, North Korea will build or supervise the construction of special Burmese military facilities, including tunnels and caves in which missiles, aircraft and even naval ships could be hidden. Burma will also receive expert training for its special forces, air defense training, plus a language training program between personnel in the two armed forces.
Shwe Mann’s delegation also visited a surface-to-surface missile factory, partially housed in tunnels, on the outskirts of Pyongyang to observe missile production. The Burmese were particularly interested in short-range 107 mm and 240 mm multirocket launchers — a multipurpose, defensive missile system used in case of a foreign invasion. Also of great interest was the latest in antitank, laser-guided missile technology.
To suppress ethic insurgents and urban dissent, the regime doesn’t need such sophisticated weapons. Burma’s desire for missiles, airborne warning and control system, air defense systems, GPS communication jammers and defensive radar systems indicates that the generals envision both defensive and offensive capabilities.
North Korea’s military buildup is often viewed primarily as a security threat to Northeast Asia. But its burgeoning relationship with Burma is a reminder of how easily one rogue regime can empower others. Burma’s burning ambition to acquire modern missile technology, if left unchecked, could pose a dangerous destabilizing threat to regional stability.
Mr. Aung Zaw is founder and editor of the Chiang Mai-based Irrawaddy magazine.
http://online.wsj.com/article/
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Neither war nor peace: The future of the cease-fire agreements in Burma
Source: The Transnational Institute (TNI)
Date: 09 Jul 2009
Introduction
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the first ceasefire agreements in Burma, which put a stop to decades of fighting between the military government and a wide range of ethnic armed opposition groups. These groups had taken up arms against the government in search of more autonomy and ethnic rights.
The military government has so far failed to address the main grievances and aspirations of the cease-fire groups. The regime now wants them to disarm or become Border Guard Forces. It also wants them to form new political parties which would participate in the controversial 2010 elections. They are unlikely to do so unless some of their basic demands are met. This raises many serious questions about the future of the cease-fires.
The international community has focused on the struggle of the democratic opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi, who has become an international icon. The ethnic minority issue and the relevance of the cease-fire agreements have been almost completely ignored.
Ethnic conflict needs to be resolved in order to bring about any lasting political solution. Without a political settlement that addresses ethnic minority needs and goals it is extremely unlikely there will be peace and democracy in Burma. Instead of isolating and demonising the cease-fire groups, all national and international actors concerned with peace and democracy in Burma should actively engage with them, and involve them in discussions about political change in the country.
This paper explains how the cease-fire agreements came about, and analyses the goals and strategies of the ceasefire groups. It also discusses the weaknesses the groups face in implementing these goals, and the positive and negative consequences of the cease-fires, including their effect on the economy. The paper then examines the international responses to the cease-fires, and ends with an overview of the future prospects for the agreements. http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/
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Globe Editorial
The Boston Globe
Disillusioned in Burma
July 10, 2009
TRUE TO form, Burma’s military dictator, General Than Shwe, showed only disdain when UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited that tortured land last weekend. Than Shwe and the other four generals in the ruling junta denied Ban’s requests for a democratic evolution. To his credit, Ban spoke out afterward, asking, “How much longer can Burma afford to wait for national reconciliation, democratic transition and full respect for human rights?’’
Discuss
COMMENTS ()
Now that he has seen experienced the junta leader’s inflexibility firsthand, Ban must confront the question: What can the world body do to help liberate the people of Burma? The narco-trafficking regime there has forced people into labor, used systematic rape as a weapon of war, and conducted brutal army offenses that uprooted hundreds of thousands of people from minority ethnic groups.
Ban had the right idea. Upon arriving in Burma, he planned to ask for the release of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and 2,100 other political prisoners. He would call for reconciliation with Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, landslide winners of Burma’s last free election in 1990, a mandate the junta never honored. Ban also wanted to foster humanitarian aid and economic development.
But after Than Shwe refused to cede to any of these requests, Ban got the message. “Neither peace nor development can thrive without democracy and respect for human rights,’’ he told diplomats and aid agencies.
Ban is mistaken, however, if he thinks that proper monitoring will legitimize an election scheduled for 2010 – an exercise rigged to perpetuate military rule with a civilian patina. Burmese democratic activist Win Tin has observed that the true barrier to democracy in Burma is not the mechanics of next year’s balloting but the junta’s “unjust constitution.’’ That document bars Suu Kyi from participating, reserves 25 percent of seats in Parliament for the military, and practically guarantees the generals and their cronies an overwhelming majority.
If Ban really wants to help the people of Burma, he should side with the 55 members of the US Congress who recently signed a letter to President Obama urging him “to take the lead in establishing a United Nations Security Council Commission of Inquiry into the Burmese military regime’s crimes against humanity and war crimes against its civilian population.’’ Such commissions were instituted for Rwanda and Darfur. Nothing less is needed if the UN, that would-be parliament of nations, is to fulfill its commitment to protect the peoples of the world from criminal rulers.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company. http://www.boston.com/
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The Straits Times: July 10, 2009
Suu Kyi trial to resume
Ms Suu Kyi (left) is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harbouring an American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days. — PHOTO: AFP
YANGON (Myanmar) – RIOT police deployed outside Myanmar’s main prison on Friday as the trial of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was set to resume, a week after ruling generals blocked efforts by the UN chief to save her from a possible five-year prison term.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate is charged with violating the terms of her house arrest by harbouring an American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home and stayed for two days.
Khin Moe Moe, a lawyer and a member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, was scheduled to appear as a defence witness when the trial restarts on Friday inside Yangon’s Insein prison where Ms Suu Kyi is currently being held.
The trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and Ms Suu Kyi’s local supporters, who worry that the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, on an official visit to Myanmar last Friday and Saturday, failed to gain Ms Suu Kyi’s release or even visit her in prison.
Also being tried on the same charges are two women members of Ms Suu Kyi’s party, who were her sole companions while under house arrest, and the American, John Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Missouri.
The mostly closed-door trial started May 18. The court at first had allowed only one of four defence witnesses to take the stand. On appeal, the Yangon Divisional Court ruled that Khin Moe Moe also could be heard but maintained the disqualification of prominent journalist and former political prisoner Win Tin, and party vice chairman Tin Oo, who is currently under house arrest.
Ms Suu Kyi’s lawyers went up to Myanmar’s highest court to reinstate two key defence witnesses but the High Court last month rejected their request, ruling it was ‘intended to disturb and delay the trial.’
The court had approved 23 prosecution witnesses, of whom 14 took the stand, according to Ms Suu Kyi’s lawyers. The defence has not contested the basic facts of the case but argues that the relevant law has been misapplied by the authorities. — AP http://www.straitstimes.com/
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Aung San Suu Kyi Held in “Gulag-like Conditions”
Friday, 10 July 2009, 11:23 am
Press Release: Terry Evans
The British intelligence service MI6 has reported that the world’s most famous political prisoner, Aung San Suu Kyi, is being held in “gulag-like conditions” while being tried at Rangoon’s infamous Insein prison.
MI6 stated that, “Her trial has all the elements of an old-time People’s Court hearing. No public are admitted. The defence lawyers cannot discuss the hearing outside the court. Suu Kyi sits in a dock under guard, and cannot speak to her judges directly. No reporters are allowed to cover the hearing.”
Her lawyer Nyan Win also confirmed that Suu Kyi was only allowed to read the state-controlled press, and was being denied access to “uncensored information via foreign broadcasting”.
The junta’s appalling treatment of Burma’s democratically elected leader is sure to be raised before the UN Security Council in August, and again in September when the US takes over the chair from the UK.
In the past Burma has been able to rely on the vetoes of two permanent members of the Security Council – China and Russia – to block unfavorable resolutions. However, informed sources say that China is extremely disappointed by the Burmese regime’s recent treatment of UN chief Ban Ki-moon.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/
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U.N. action needed against Burma’s junta
By Zin Linn
Column: Burma Question
Published: July 10, 2009
Bangkok, Thailand — The people of Burma were not surprised when they were informed about U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s sad story during his July 3-4 Burma-trip. At least it was a good lesson for the top diplomat that the military dictatorship in this country knows no international norms or diplomatic tradition at all.
The worst was that the junta treated the U.N. secretary-general as their pawn. The junta supervised his agenda and exploited the occasion.
Ban said he was “deeply disappointed” as he left Burma following his two-day visit, during which Senior General Than Shwe snubbed his requests to visit pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi. “I pressed as hard as I could,” Ban told reporters. “I had hoped that he would agree to my request, but it is regrettable that he did not.”
According to Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy, the trip was a failure for Ban. “We would like to say it was a great loss for him,” the NLD spokesman said.
As for Than Shwe, he made clear to the world that his regime will not follow the U.N.’s consecutive resolutions. The dictator knows the United Nations is a disabled body. In addition, the senior general is an expert in psychological warfare and a disciplined diplomat is no match for his cunning.
Than Shwe, showing off as the boss of Burma, is the man who has mercilessly suppressed the populace, murdered monks, and while the majority of the people starved, cheerfully organized a luxurious wedding for his daughter.
During his two-day visit, Ban met twice with Than Shwe at the new capital Naypyidaw, and was twice refused a visit to Aung San Suu Kyi, who is currently on trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest. Ban’s requests for the release of over 2,000 political prisoners and the resumption of dialogue toward reconciliation with the political opposition were also refused.
The U.N. chief expressed his disappointment, saying the Burmese regime failed to take an opportunity to show a new era of political openness.
“I am deeply disappointed that Senior General Than Shwe refused my requests,” Ban said. “Allowing a visit to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi would have been an important symbol of the government’s willingness to embark on the kind of meaningful engagement that will be essential if the elections in 2010 are to be seen as credible.”
Than Shwe is using Ban’s goodwill visit as a way of deceiving the international community and distracting people from the key topic. Ordinary people in Burma are convinced that Than Shwe will never make any political concessions, especially with reference to Aung San Suu Kyi. He prefers putting her away in a dungeon or kicking her out of the country.
The junta’s refusal to let Ban visit Suu Kyi will probably be a new thrust for Security Council action. But the option is likely to be to count on China.
The 15-nation Security Council has been incapable of taking serious action in the case of military-ruled Burma. China, Burma’s next-door neighbor and a major ally, has been protecting Burma in order to exploit its natural resources. Like the United States, Britain, France and Russia, China holds permanent veto power in the council and can reject any action.
Besides, Beijing has no desire to allow the Security Council to impose sanctions on Myanmar/Burma. Burma’s seaside provides China with easy access to South Asia and African markets. Moreover, China supposes Burma as its protectorate.
According to some analysts, the United States and the European Union must put more pressure on the key cohorts of the junta – China, India and Russia. China supplies arms, ammunition and motor vehicles to Burma’s army of over 400,000 soldiers. Russia sold the junta a squadron of second-hand MIG-29 fighter jets, with the same power as U.S. F-16 fighters, for US$150 million in 2001. Russia also sold a 10 megawatt nuclear power facility to Burma. In addition, Moscow provides training for thousands of Burmese army cadets in various subjects on modern defense.
India continues to provide armaments and military assistance to the Burmese junta in return for natural resource concessions. Each of these three countries has provided millions of dollars worth of military hardware to the Burmese military, in so doing providing tools for further oppression. Moreover, Russia and China vetoed the U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Burma’s human rights record.
The junta is going out of its way to court the support of ASEAN, China and India for its political hoodwink of the 2010 election. At the same time it is riding roughshod over the National League for Democracy, which is the only challenger to its supremacy at home. Suu Kyi will not be allowed to contest the elections scheduled for 2010; the junta has made that clear already.
Ban Ki-moon gave a briefing on his visit to diplomatic missions, U.N. agencies, and international and local NGOs before leaving Rangoon on July 4.
“The question today is this: how much longer can Myanmar afford to wait for national reconciliation, democratic transition and full respect for human rights? The cost of delay will be counted in wasted lives, lost opportunities and prolonged isolation from the international community,” he said in a remarkable speech in Rangoon.
He also said: “The government has articulated its goals as stability, national reconciliation and democracy. The upcoming election – the first in 20 years – must be inclusive, participatory and transparent if it is to be credible. Myanmar’s way forward must be rooted in respect for human rights. This is why I say that all political prisoners, including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, should be released without delay.”
Furthermore, Ban stated again his suggestion to Than Shwe as soon as he arrived at Bangkok.
“I told Senior General Than Shwe that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners should be released without delay and allowed to participate freely in the political process. I said I wanted to see resumption of substantive and time-bound dialogue between the government and Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy at the higher level of engagement. I set out detailed criteria for a conducive environment for free and fair elections in 2010. Only then will the elections be seen as credible and legitimate,” he told journalists in Bangkok after he flew out of Rangoon.
Commenting on Ban’s remarks after his Burma visit, Win Tin, a veteran journalist and Central Executive Committee member of the NLD, said he hoped the secretary-general’s words would be followed by real action.
“I hope Mr Ban Ki-moon’s speech will not end just in Rangoon,” Win Tin said.
Nevertheless, Ban must now know that words without teeth will not budge the Burmese generals.
The Burmese people are so interested in what British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned in his newspaper editorial earlier this month. Brown wrote: “If the Burmese regime refuses to engage, the international community must be prepared to respond robustly. We will not rest until Aung San Suu Kyi – and all those who share her commitment to a better and brighter future for Burma – are able to play their rightful role in it.”
The Burmese public feels it is time for Ban to raise this half-century-long political conflict in the U.N. Security Council. They hope for a global arms embargo against Burma’s military junta, and an investigation into crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the military regime.
By using such effectual pressure, the U.N. Security Council ought to drag the Burmese generals to the dialogue table.
– http://upiasia.com/Politics/
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