Myanmar Junta Calls Suu Kyi’s Conditions for Talks Unrealistic

Myanmar Junta Calls Suu Kyi’s Conditions for Talks Unrealistic
By Michael Heath

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Myanmar’s junta accused pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi of setting unrealistic conditions for talks, following the visit of a United Nations envoy trying to broker discussions between the military and the opposition.

“A dialogue will be practical and successful only if the discussions are based on the reality of prevailing conditions,” Information Minister Brigadier General Kyaw Hsan said in a statement carried by state media yesterday. “There will be no success if it is based on unrealistic conditions.”

Suu Kyi, who has spent 13 of the past 20 years under house arrest, told UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari on Feb. 2 that she would only hold talks with the junta if all political prisoners are released and the results of 1990 elections won by her National League for Democracy are recognized, Agence France-Presse reported, citing NLD members at the meeting.

The junta plans elections in 2010 after it staged a referendum last year for a new constitution that it said was approved by 92 percent of voters. The NLD denounced the charter, which bars Suu Kyi, 63, from holding office, saying it aims to extend military rule.

Gambari was making his fifth visit to Myanmar since the junta crushed pro-democracy demonstrations led by monks in 2007, prompting international condemnation. The regime has stepped up prosecutions of dissidents involved in the protests, in what human rights organizations say is an effort to crush anti- government groups before the elections.

More than 2,000 political prisoners are held in Myanmar’s jails, according to the U.S. State Department.

International Sanctions

Myanmar’s Prime Minister Thein Sein told Gambari Feb. 3, at the end of the envoy’s four-day visit, that the UN should press for the lifting of international sanctions to promote political improvements in the country, according to the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

Sanctions have damaged human rights and hindered efforts to build a democratic nation, Thein Sein told Gambari.

Suu Kyi first arrested in 1989, has had only brief periods of freedom from detention in her home in Yangon since her party won the 1990 elections. The results were rejected by the military, which has ruled the country formerly known as Burma since 1962.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner, daughter of independence leader General Aung San, emerged as an opposition leader during an economic crisis in the late 1980s.