News & Articles on Burma
Saturday, 24 September, 2011
----------------------------------------
Where China Meets India
Myanmar's Suu Kyi hopeful of change 'very soon'
Myanmar: Change Is Yet To Come
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi wins democracy prize
In Myanmar, Living In Fear Of Army
Burma reforms threatened
Burma Failing Its Obligations To Curb Drug Trafficking
Myanmar will never allow Suu Kyi to come to power
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Where China Meets India
Review by Tim Johnston
Thant Myint-U on Burma as a bridge between Asia’s two giants
Among Asian nations characterised chiefly by their economic and social progress, Burma has long been the laggard. Yet this may be about to change. The release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest last year, a new nominally civilian parliament and renewed investor interest in the country have at least given its people grounds to hope that better times lie around the corner. And as Thant Myint-U makes clear in Where China Meets India, one thing is not in doubt: Burma’s days as a neglected backwater are over.
Myint-U, a Harvard-educated historian and grandson of Burmese diplomat and UN secretary-general U Thant, points out that geographically Burma is the keystone in a new and potentially immensely profitable trade bridge. It is in Burma that China’s “Go West” and India’s “Look East” policies meet. Both countries have recognised its value: as a source of raw materials; for its potential access to the Bay of Bengal; and as the final link in a chain connecting their combined population of 2.5bn people.
The economic logic of the connection is so compelling that outsiders frequently overlook the difficulties. Yet as Myint-U acknowledges, Burma is beset by inefficient and corrupt government, devilled by some of the world’s longest running ethnic conflicts and imbued with xenophobia after centuries of encroachment by its neighbours.
To complicate matters, Burma shares its borders with relatively dysfunctional regions of India and China. India’s north-east, connected to the rest of the country by a strip of land only 21km wide in places, is home to more than 40 insurgent groups. It remains one of the poorest parts of India despite disproportionately high government spending. On the Chinese side, Yunnan is also poor and has a long history of resistance to central control, but here economic growth is starting to filter in from the east.
In the race for dominance in Burma, China has established an indisputable lead. The sanctions implemented by the west and – until recently – India have created a vacuum; Myint-U understands what motivated them, but after almost two decades of stagnation finds the intellectual justification wanting. “Western politicians have been happy to view Burma as a simple morality play and a useful issue on which to appear ‘tough’ on human rights. The actual consequences of a policy that has long failed to deliver results are not important,” he says.
Beijing has already signed deals to build oil and gas pipelines connecting the Burmese coast with Kunming, 2,380km to the north-east, and is building hydropower dams on Burma’s Irrawaddy and Salween rivers that will eventually generate 20 gigawatts of electricity – a similar output to China’s Three Gorges Dam – almost all of which will be used by Chinese consumers over the border.
It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that Delhi realised the strategic disadvantages of isolating Burma, and it has been struggling to catch up ever since. India is building a port in Sittwe that will eventually connect to its north-eastern states, but it lost out to China in its bid for the Shwe gas fields.
Myint-U is full of wonder at China’s development but also nervous about its influence. The pipelines running north to Kunming, which could be finished as early as 2013, will reduce China’s dependency on the route through the Malacca Strait, but will make it vulnerable to upheavals in Burma, giving it a vested interest in ensuring that whoever is in power in Naypyidaw does not stray too far from China’s interests.
Already there are tensions between Burma’s nationalist instincts and the tightening embrace of its neighbours. For Myint-U, much now depends on the west: if the country’s rehabilitation spurs more new investment, it may once again take its rightful place at the centre of Asian trade.
Tim Johnston is the FT’s Bangkok correspondent http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/530da52e-e2b6-11e0-897a-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1AztcfEwh
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Myanmar's Suu Kyi hopeful of change 'very soon'
REUTERS, 2011/09/24
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photoMyanmar democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi (The Asahi Shimbun file photo)
NEW YORK -- Myanmar democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi is hopeful of seeing signs of change "very soon" in the formerly military-ruled Asian nation after recently meeting President Thein Sein for the first time.
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi was released in November from 15 years of house arrest for campaigning for democracy in Myanmar, which has suffered five decades of military rule.
As a gesture to improved ties from the army-backed government that came to power in March, Thein Sein and Labor Minister Aung Kyi both separately met last month with Suu Kyi, 66, the leader of the country's democratic opposition.
"I have had talks with some of the representatives of the government and we hope that we are going to see signs of real change very soon," Suu Kyi said during a live video appearance at former U.S. President Bill Clinton's philanthropic summit in New York City.
"There has been a lot of talk about change, but people always want to see something concrete and they are right too, talk is never enough. But at least it's a beginning and I think we are beginning to see the beginning of change," she said.
She did not elaborate further on her discussions.
Thein Sein, also 66, is a former prime minister who was the international face of the army junta. He is regarded as one of the more moderate members of the new government elected in November in polls widely criticized internationally as a sham.
"We're at a very difficult stage," Suu Kyi -- the charismatic, Oxford-educated daughter of Myanmar's late independence hero, General Aung San -- told the seventh annual Clinton Global Initiative.
LIFE SPENT FIGHTING FOR DEMOCRACY
"I am cautiously optimistic that we're going forward and that we will be able to get on the road to a true national reconciliation," she said.
Last week the new U.S. special representative to Myanmar, Derek Mitchell, said Myanmar's leaders must pursue "genuine" reforms that involve Suu Kyi and make progress in freeing thousands of political prisoners before ties can improve with Washington, a U.S. envoy said on Wednesday.
Mitchell declined to identify specific conditions for lifting sanctions, in place since the military crushed a 1988 student uprising.
Speaking at the end of a six-day trip to the army-dominated former British colony also known as Burma, Mitchell said he had a "very productive exchange" with Myanmar officials on the issue of political prisoners but received no commitment.
Most analysts believe the openness shown by Myanmar's leaders, who until last year were part of one of the world's most reclusive and oppressive regimes, is aimed partly at ending decades of Western sanctions and consolidating power.
But Western countries first want an estimated 2,100 political prisoners freed.
"I didn't think when I first started out in the movement for democracy that I would have to devote my whole life to it," Suu Kyi told Clinton's summit.
More than 1,200 people, including more than 50 heads of state such, business leaders, humanitarians and celebrities are due to attend the three-day summit that ends on Thursday.
This year the meeting is focusing on creating jobs, sustainable consumption and programs for women and girls. To attend Clinton's summit, commitments must be made on one of those issues and they must be kept or you cannot return.
Clinton's summit came from his frustration while president from 1993 and 2001 at conferences that prompted little action. http://www.asahi.com/english/TKY201109230289.html
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Myanmar: Change Is Yet To Come
TODD PITMAN 09/24/11 08:03 AM ET AP
LOI TAI LENG, Myanmar — The soldiers arrived unexpectedly in 15-year-old Sai Noom Mong's village in eastern Myanmar with a brutal message: Leave your homes, they told hundreds of startled residents, or we'll burn them to the ground.
Fearful of their fate but too frail to flee themselves, the teen's parents made a painful decision the following night. They secretly delivered their son to sympathetic rebels from their minority Shan ethnic group and said goodbye, unsure if they'd ever see him again.
"My father said there's a place you can go and get an education and be safe," Sai Noom Mong told The Associated Press in the rebel-controlled village of Loi Tai Leng, where he arrived in May after an arduous monthlong escape through the forest on foot. He has lived as an orphan ever since.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE – AP journalists crossed into a rebel-controlled area of Myanmar to interview refugees fleeing human rights abuses allegedly committed by the army, despite a new government.
---------
His family's breakup is one of myriad tales told here that underscore how fundamental change has yet to come to one of the world's most repressive nations, even though its all-powerful military government officially disbanded in March.
The civilian administration that replaced it is dominated by retired generals promising democratic reform, but many say the new government is only a proxy for continued military rule. Here in the east, ethnic minorities live in fear of an army and government that Amnesty International says are still committing human rights abuses on "a massive scale." Long-running clashes between the armed forces and ethnic rebel groups have not only ground on, they've spread to areas that haven't seen fighting for close to 20 years.
The upsurge in violence comes amid an unprecedented flood of foreign investment in lucrative dam and pipeline projects, much of it from resource-hungry China. Foreign investment pledges totaled $20 billion over the last year – dwarfing the amount of the last 20 years combined – and critics say commercial interests are trumping human rights concerns, especially in the east.
"Solving the ethnic conflicts is the biggest issue facing Burma right now," said David Scott Mathieson, a Human Rights Watch expert on Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
"A lot of people are optimistic the new government could be sincere about reform, but they are not factoring in the ethnic dimension," he said. "There's been a marked upswing in fighting, and that's not an improvement. It shows the state hasn't prioritized the issue."
The result: at least 50,000 people forced to flee their homes in the last few months alone; this in a nation that already counts nearly half a million displaced and at least 215,000 refugees abroad.
Myanmar is home to about 55 million people, 40 percent of them from ethnic groups including the Shan, Karen, Karenni, Kachin, Arakan, Chin and Mon. The Burmese majority, which comprises the other 60 percent, effectively rules the country and holds key positions of influence throughout society.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the then-ruling junta reached cease-fire agreements with 17 rebel movements, allowing them to keep their weapons and a degree of autonomy. But in the run-up to elections last year, the military insisted they transform themselves into "border guard" forces and submit to army leadership.
Most refused, and two cease-fire agreements that had held for nearly 20 years disintegrated – first in March with the northern faction of the Shan State Army, then in June with the Kachin Independence Army.
Now, "with power transferred to a 'new' government, the army seems to have increased the political and military pressure on ... ethnic groups to persuade them to submit," said Trevor Wilson, a fellow at Australia's College of Asia and the Pacific.
Some of the latest fighting, in Kachin state in particular, has taken place in zones where new dams are being built. The dams will generate revenue worth billions of dollars per year, but environmentalists say they will produce electricity primarily for export – a cruel irony given that only around 20 percent of Burmese have power.
"The military wants to control land and resources," said Yawd Serk, who commands the Shan State Army's southern faction from its headquarters in Loi Tai Leng. "They don't care that people are still suffering atrocities or living in the dark."
The government denies such claims, arguing the nation must develop. And rebels also profit from the country's resources, including jade, rubies and opium, to finance their struggle.
The government has boosted hope for change by unblocking the long-censored Internet, calling on exiles to return, and holding rare talks with prominent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from seven years of house arrest last year. Last month, its leadership also called for peace talks with rebels, though most of them dismissed the offer as insincere.
"They're trying to show the international community that things have changed so there is less pressure on them," Yawd Serk said in an interview on the deck of his teakwood home. He wore a dark green military uniform. "But the reality is, they're waging the same battle they've always waged – they want to get rid of all ethnic resistance, period."
Rights groups and the AP have gathered testimony from victims confirming that even under the new government, the army is still subjecting citizens to forced relocation, forced labor, gang rape and extrajudicial killings. Amnesty International says troops have used civilians as human shields and minesweepers.
One Burmese woman described troops shelling her village indiscriminately, killing four novice Buddhist monks at a temple. Another told how her husband was beaten unconscious by troops who accused him of collaborating with rebels; they spent their life savings to flee, but he died several days after arriving in Loi Tai Leng, which is on the border with Thailand.
Sai Noom Mong said his father had been hauled away repeatedly to dig ditches and build fences without pay for the military, sometimes two or three days a week.
The first time the army evicted his family from their home, he was just a few years old. The second time, this April, soldiers told villagers they needed their land to build a new military base. "You have no choice," Sai Noom Mong quoted the troops as saying. The soldiers didn't say where residents could go.
Today, at least, Sai Noom Mong no longer fears the army.
Every dawn, he watches as the flag of the rebel Shan State Army is hoisted up a pole at the school where he has been able to study for the first time in his life. Teachers teach in his native Shan language, which is banned at schools elsewhere.
Black hair cut short, he wears a new blue tracksuit and sneakers, and sleeps at a dorm with other boys who were either separated from their parents like him, or whose parents were killed in the conflict.
Sitting on a schoolroom bench as a heavy rain poured outside, turning the orange dirt to mud, he said his father "promised I would be OK, and he was right."
But Sai Noom Mong has no idea what became of his family. His father's apparent contacts with rebels, which enabled him to organize his escape, could have tragic consequences if discovered by the army.
When asked about their fate, he is quiet, stoic.
At night, when he dreams, he sometimes returns home – walking with his family through the emerald rice paddies of his childhood.
His nightmares tell a different story: He opens the door to his family's house and sees them all sprawling dead. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/24/myanmar-change_n_979049.html
-----------------------------------
Myanmar’s Suu Kyi wins democracy prize
Saturday, September 24, 2011
LONDON: Myanmar democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi has won this year’s Chatham House prize for her contribution to the improvement of international relations, the British think-tank said on Friday.
The 66-year-old’s fight to bring political change to Myanmar, for which she has had to spend most of the last two decades under house arrest, had made her an international symbol of democracy and peaceful resistance, it said.
“Her consistently measured and non-violent approach towards ending military rule in Burma has served as a powerful example to all those struggling to bring about democratic and accountable systems of governance in their countries,” said Chatham House director Robin Niblett.
Aung San Suu Kyi was freed in November but her movements are still restricted by the ruling military junta in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
Former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright will accept the prize — a crystal award and scroll — on her behalf at a ceremony in London in December, but Aung San Suu Kyi issued a statement thanking Chatham House for their recognition.
“To receive the Chatham House Prize is to be reminded of the unique link between national and international issues,” she said.
-------------------------------
In Myanmar, Living In Fear Of Army
Published on 24 September 2011
by Todd Pitman: BAGAN (MYANMAR), OfficialWire News Bureau
The soldiers arrived unexpectedly in 15-year-old Sai Noom Mong's village in eastern Myanmar with a brutal message: Leave your homes, they told hundreds of startled residents, or we'll burn them to the ground.
Fearful of their fate but too frail to flee themselves, the teen's parents made a painful decision the following night. They secretly delivered their son to sympathetic rebels from their minority Shan ethnic group and said goodbye, unsure if they'd ever see him again.
"My father said there's a place you can go and get an education and be safe," Sai Noom Mong told The Associated Press in the rebel-controlled village of Loi Tai Leng, where he arrived in May after an arduous monthlong escape through the forest on foot. He has lived as an orphan ever since.
___
EDITOR'S NOTE — AP journalists crossed into a rebel-controlled area of Myanmar to interview refugees fleeing human rights abuses allegedly committed by the army, despite a new government.
___
His family's breakup is one of myriad tales told here that underscore how fundamental change has yet to come to one of the world's most repressive nations, even though its all-powerful military government officially disbanded in March.
The civilian administration that replaced it is dominated by retired generals promising democratic reform, but many say the new government is only a proxy for continued military rule. Here in the east, ethnic minorities live in fear of an army and government that Amnesty International says are still committing human rights abuses on "a massive scale." Long-running clashes between the armed forces and ethnic rebel groups have not only ground on, they've spread to areas that haven't seen fighting for close to 20 years.
The upsurge in violence comes amid an unprecedented flood of foreign investment in lucrative dam and pipeline projects, much of it from resource-hungry China. Foreign investment pledges totaled $20 billion over the last year — dwarfing the amount of the last 20 years combined — and critics say commercial interests are trumping human rights concerns, especially in the east.
"Solving the ethnic conflicts is the biggest issue facing Burma right now," said David Scott Mathieson, a Human Rights Watch expert on Myanmar, which is also known as Burma.
"A lot of people are optimistic the new government could be sincere about reform, but they are not factoring in the ethnic dimension," he said. "There's been a marked upswing in fighting, and that's not an improvement. It shows the state hasn't prioritized the issue."
The result: at least 50,000 people forced to flee their homes in the last few months alone; this in a nation that already counts nearly half a million displaced and at least 215,000 refugees abroad.
Myanmar is home to about 55 million people, 40 percent of them from ethnic groups including the Shan, Karen, Karenni, Kachin, Arakan, Chin and Mon. The Burmese majority, which comprises the other 60 percent, effectively rules the country and holds key positions of influence throughout society.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the then-ruling junta reached cease-fire agreements with 17 rebel movements, allowing them to keep their weapons and a degree of autonomy. But in the run-up to elections last year, the military insisted they transform themselves into "border guard" forces and submit to army leadership.
Most refused, and two cease-fire agreements that had held for nearly 20 years disintegrated — first in March with the northern faction of the Shan State Army, then in June with the Kachin Independence Army.
Now, "with power transferred to a 'new' government, the army seems to have increased the political and military pressure on ... ethnic groups to persuade them to submit," said Trevor Wilson, a fellow at Australia's College of Asia and the Pacific.
Some of the latest fighting, in Kachin state in particular, has taken place in zones where new dams are being built. The dams will generate revenue worth billions of dollars per year, but environmentalists say they will produce electricity primarily for export — a cruel irony given that only around 20 percent of Burmese have power.
"The military wants to control land and resources," said Yawd Serk, who commands the Shan State Army's southern faction from its headquarters in Loi Tai Leng. "They don't care that people are still suffering atrocities or living in the dark."
The government denies such claims, arguing the nation must develop. And rebels also profit from the country's resources, including jade, rubies and opium, to finance their struggle.
The government has boosted hope for change by unblocking the long-censored Internet, calling on exiles to return, and holding rare talks with prominent opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was released from seven years of house arrest last year. Last month, its leadership also called for peace talks with rebels, though most of them dismissed the offer as insincere.
"They're trying to show the international community that things have changed so there is less pressure on them," Yawd Serk said in an interview on the deck of his teakwood home. He wore a dark green military uniform. "But the reality is, they're waging the same battle they've always waged — they want to get rid of all ethnic resistance, period."
Rights groups and the AP have gathered testimony from victims confirming that even under the new government, the army is still subjecting citizens to forced relocation, forced labor, gang rape and extrajudicial killings. Amnesty International says troops have used civilians as human shields and minesweepers.
One Burmese woman described troops shelling her village indiscriminately, killing four novice Buddhist monks at a temple. Another told how her husband was beaten unconscious by troops who accused him of collaborating with rebels; they spent their life savings to flee, but he died several days after arriving in Loi Tai Leng, which is on the border with Thailand.
Sai Noom Mong said his father had been hauled away repeatedly to dig ditches and build fences without pay for the military, sometimes two or three days a week.
The first time the army evicted his family from their home, he was just a few years old. The second time, this April, soldiers told villagers they needed their land to build a new military base. "You have no choice," Sai Noom Mong quoted the troops as saying. The soldiers didn't say where residents could go.
Today, at least, Sai Noom Mong no longer fears the army.
Every dawn, he watches as the flag of the rebel Shan State Army is hoisted up a pole at the school where he has been able to study for the first time in his life. Teachers teach in his native Shan language, which is banned at schools elsewhere.
Black hair cut short, he wears a new blue tracksuit and sneakers, and sleeps at a dorm with other boys who were either separated from their parents like him, or whose parents were killed in the conflict.
Sitting on a schoolroom bench as a heavy rain poured outside, turning the orange dirt to mud, he said his father "promised I would be OK, and he was right."
But Sai Noom Mong has no idea what became of his family. His father's apparent contacts with rebels, which enabled him to organize his escape, could have tragic consequences if discovered by the army.
When asked about their fate, he is quiet, stoic.
At night, when he dreams, he sometimes returns home — walking with his family through the emerald rice paddies of his childhood. http://www.officialwire.com/main.php?action=posted_news&rid=39860
------------------------------------
Burma reforms threatened
Lindsay Murdoch, Bangkok
September 23, 2011
HARDLINERS and vested interests in Burma's military-dominated government could threaten reforms as the country emerges from decades of isolation and authoritarianism, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group warns.
The group says that since mid-July, Burmese President Thein Sein has overseen a dramatic change as he has reached out to long-time critics of the former regime, proposing that differences be put aside for the good of the country.
''While there are strong indications that the political will exists to bring fundamental change, success will require much more than a determined leader as resistance can be expected from hardliners in the power structure and spoilers with a vested interest in the status quo,'' said Jim Della-Giacoma, the crisis group's south-east Asia project director.
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The head of an international non-governmental organisation, who did not want to be named, visited Burma this week and told The Age that for every government official supporting the reforms, there was another one opposing them.
''The parliament is passing substantive laws and bold changes are being made rapidly in the new capital, Naypyitaw,'' he said. ''But it all could be derailed just as quickly.''
Robert Templer, the crisis group's Asia program director, urged countries to acknowledge and support Burma's major initiatives, such as the release of political prisoners, which he said is under consideration.
Mr Templer said sanctions were counterproductive and only encouraged a siege mentality among Burma's leaders that harmed the country's mostly poor population.
''With the political process moving ahead quickly, now is not the time for the West to remain disengaged and sceptical,'' Mr Templer said.
''It is critical to grasp this unique opportunity to support a process that not even the most optimistic observers saw coming,'' he said.
In a video link to a conference in New York, Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, urged the world not to take its eye off her country as it entered what she said were the first small steps to freedom.
Read more: http://www.watoday.com.au/world/burma-reforms-threatened-20110923-1kpcl.html#ixzz1AzN3VXUT
-----------------------------------
VOA: Editorials , 09-23-2011
Burma Failing Its Obligations To Curb Drug Trafficking
Southeast Asian nation may face sanctions for its non-compliance.
In addition to the country’s illegal opium cultivation problem, Burma is the largest source of methamphetamine pills in Asia.
In its on-going effort to combat illicit drugs, every year the United States prepares a list identifying nations playing a role in the international drug trade that significantly affect our nation. Countries found to have failed to live up to international counter-narcotics agreements or other anti-drug programs can face cuts in American aid, though the President has the authority to waive penalties to allow continued cooperation in these efforts.
Twenty-two nations are identified in the latest list of major drug-producing and transit countries. Ranging from Laos to Afghanistan to Haiti and Colombia, the countries may be listed because of a combination of geographic, commercial and economic factors that allow illicit drugs to be produced or shipped through them, despite their government's concerted drug enforcement efforts.
Burma is one of three nations, however, that have demonstrably failed to live up to their international counter-narcotics agreements or cooperate with the U.S. in its fight against illicit drug trafficking. Accordingly, the Southeast Asian nation may face sanctions for its non-compliance.
In addition to the country’s illegal opium cultivation problem, Burma is the largest source of methamphetamine pills in Asia. Burma’s illicit methamphetamine exported to Thailand has a devastating impact on drug users, and this substance is having a growing negative impact on China and the countries of Southeast Asia. Burma itself suffers from one of the most serious problems of illegal drug use in Asia.
The United States has noted steps the Burmese government has taken to curb the narcotics trade – opium production has declined in parts of the country and law enforcement has seized some major drug caches – and it would be in the best interests of both our nations for closer cooperation in fighting the problem. http://www.voanews.com/policy/editorials/Burma-Failing-Its-Obligations-To-Curb-Drug-Trafficking-130476363.html
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Myanmar will never allow Suu Kyi to come to power
by S RAMAKRISHNAN September 23, 2011
EU official permitted to meet Suu Kyi
European Union’s top aid official has completed his visit to Myanmar and was allowed to meet the peace icon Aung San Suu Kyi. The official stated that the Myanmar authorities encouraged more humanitarian access to more areas of Myanmar. This was stated by the Humanitarian Aid Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva in Brussels. European Union donated more than 22 million Euros this year for humanitarian aid to Burma and also to refugees in Thailand.
Change of mind seen in military junta
This is really a good change from the Burmese government. Earlier, the Burmese government controlled by the military junta jailed Suu Kyi for many years. Recently it conducted elections and installed a puppet civil government in Yangon. After this, Suu Kyi herself was released from prison and allowed to freely move anywhere in Burma. She even met the President Thein Sein. The State-run television reported that both parties set aside their differences and discussed common interests and areas of potential cooperation for the benefit of the country and the people. Suu Kyi stated that she was happy and satisfied about the meeting. A day after this meeting, Suu Kyi was allowed to travel to Naypitaw, the new capital in the middle of the jungle, to attend a government sponsored workshop on economic development. There, she mingled freely with Ministers and other ruling party leaders.
Suu Kyi is now tired because of age
There is a change visible on both sides. Suu Kyi, because of her age (she is 66) and also because of her spending two decades of her life in prison, has become tired. Age and time mellow feelings and emotions. She has become more matured now. She has realised that she could achieve nothing by opposing the military junta and the government. Now she wants to spend time for her family and friends. She does not want to land in prison again and spend years in isolation. So she is opting for reconciliation.
Suu Kyi is given a little liberty outside the domain of politics
The military junta, on the other hand, thinks that by giving Suu Kyi a little bit of liberty outside the domain of politics, the stigma around it in the international community could be removed and more aid will be forthcoming. More aid means more cash and more cash means more bank balance for the military leaders. Thus the military wants to make money through Suu Kyi. As long as Suu Kyi does not talk about politics, it is prepared to give her freedom.
Not actually a civilian government
Members of the Myanmar’s army-dominated Parliament have called for a sweeping jail amnesty scheme through which about 2000 prisoners of conscience could be released. These 2000 members belong to Suu Kyi’s NLD party (National League for Democracy). The old era of military regime seems to have ended and the new era of civilian rule, with all its imperfections, has begun. But we should not forget the fact that this civilian government is not actually a civilian government, but a government imposed by the military junta. In fact the ‘civilian’ government contains only retired military officers.
Suu Kyi may again be imprisoned if she exceeds her freedom
Suu Kyi will roam about in Burma with freedom. She can spend time with her family and people. But if she again begins to talk politics or make inflammatory speech, the military junta will put her behind bars. This is the stark reality in Burma. http://www.groundreport.com/Politics/Myanmar-will-never-allow-Suu-Kyi-to-come-to-power/2941529
Sunday, September 25, 2011
News & Articles on Burma-Saturday, 24 September, 2011-uzl
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