Myanmar lets dissident meet with her party

Myanmar lets dissident meet with her party
Move comes as Obama seeks to engage junta
By Mark McDonald, New York Times News | December 17, 2009

HONG KONG - The military junta in Myanmar allowed the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to meet with senior members of her party yesterday, the latest in a recent series of signals that suggest the junta might be responding to diplomatic overtures from the West.

A Western diplomat in the main city of Yangon, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Suu Kyi was permitted to leave her home under military guard to meet with three elderly leaders of her National League for Democracy. She has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.



The meeting took place at a state guest house in Yangon, the former Rangoon. She had not been permitted to confer with her party colleagues in nearly a year.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate, had requested the meeting in a letter to the leader of the junta, Senior General Than Shwe. She also requested a meeting with the general himself.

Despite her continuing detention, Suu Kyi has been able to meet in recent months with a number of visiting diplomats, including a high-level delegation from the United States that was led by Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, and his deputy, Scot Marciel.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration undertook a review of American policy toward Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and decided to seek a new approach, including direct talks with the junta.

But Campbell said a wide array of sanctions against Myanmar would not be immediately relaxed, and improved bilateral relations depended on the regime making “real progress on democracy and human rights,’’ a demand reiterated by President Obama at a regional summit meeting last month in Singapore.

While in Singapore, Obama sat in a meeting near the prime minister of Myanmar, General Thein Sein - the first time an American president had met with a member of the junta.

Suu Kyi met for 45 minutes yesterday with the National League for Democracy chairman, Aung Shwe, 92; the party secretary, U Lwin, 87; and another senior official, Lun Tin.

The elderly leaders of the party are known collectively in diplomatic circles in Yangon as “the uncles.’’

Their meeting, which U Lwin discussed with reporters afterward, took place less than a week before the highest court in Myanmar is scheduled to begin considering an appeal of the 18-month extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest.

That extension, which was handed down in August, came after an American man swam to her lakeside home in May, evaded military guards and briefly stayed there - a breach of the terms of her detention.

One of her lawyers, Kyi Win, said this month that the hearing would likely be a procedural affair. But a successful appeal and a lifting of her detention could allow Suu Kyi to play a role in national elections that the junta has vowed to hold next year.

Analysts and diplomats say the country’s new Constitution virtually ensures the continuing dominance of the military in the political life of the country, despite the election. Suu Kyi would likely be barred from running for office because her husband, who died in 1999, was a foreigner.

Her party won a landslide victory in national elections in 1990, and she was elected prime minister. The results of the election were annulled by the junta, which has continued to rule ever since.



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