EU: Burma vote illegitimate unless Suu Kyi freed -EU ministers urge Myanmar junta to free political prisoners

http://www.eubusiness.com/news-eu/1226318536.51



10 November 2008, 13:59 CET
(BRUSSELS) - Myanmar's next elections "will have no credibility" unless the regime releases democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, EU foreign ministers said Monday.

The 27 foreign ministers, meeting in Brussels, issued a joint statement deploring "the lack of progress made this year towards a genuine transition to democracy in Burma/Myanmar since the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations by the military authorities."

They stressed that the Myanmar elections scheduled for 2010 will have "no credibility" unless the authorities "unconditionally release all political prisoners, in particular Aung San Suu Kyi, and initiate a political process with United Nations support" with the opposition and ethnic groups.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but Myanmar's junta never allowed them to take office.

She has spent most of the intervening years under house arrest in the country, which has been ruled by the military since 1962.

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