UN council calls on Myanmar to release of Suu Kyi
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer – 23 mins ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The U.N. Security Council agreed after two days of talks to issue a statement Thursday calling on Myanmar's military government to immediately release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.
The council's 15 member nations voiced "serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and its political impact" and reaffirmed three previous statements since 2007. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women.
They also urged the ruling junta to begin a genuine dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and other political parties and ethnic groups. A Myanmar court on Tuesday convicted the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of violating the terms of her previous house arrest by sheltering an uninvited American visitor.
In a nod to Myanmar's colonial past, the council's member nations again pledged a commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar, also known as Burma, but said that "the future of Myanmar lies in the hands of all of its people."
The U.N. estimates there are 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi's sentence of three years in prison with hard labor was reduced to 18 months of house arrest, ensuring the pro-democracy leader cannot participate in the military junta's planned elections next year.
The council press statement — which is not legally binding — was read aloud outside the council chambers by British Ambassador John Sawers, this month's council president.
The U.S. had drafted a statement asking the council to condemn the conviction and sentencing and to issue it as a presidential statement, meaning it would become part of the Security Council's official record.
But even a nonbinding press statement, the most that permanent council members China and Russia would allow, was something of a victory for the other three permanent members, Britain, France and the United States. Only permanent members hold veto power.
China had opposed any action, and Russia, Vietnam and Libya had been skeptical of council intervention.
The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been detained for about 14 of the past 20 years for her nonviolent political activities, but this was the first time she faced a criminal trial. She had been under house arrest since 2003, but was taken to Yangon's Insein Prison in May for trial after American John Yettaw secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.
As the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated when she was 2 years old, Suu Kyi was educated at Oxford University in England and married a British academic in 1972.
In 1988 she rushed back to Burma, later renamed Myanmar, to care for her ailing mother and eventually helped found the National League for Democracy party. She was barred from running in elections called by the junta in May 1990.
Though her party won 392 of 495 seats in parliament, the military refused to honor the results. She became symbol of Myanmar's suppressed democracy — and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer – 23 mins ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The U.N. Security Council agreed after two days of talks to issue a statement Thursday calling on Myanmar's military government to immediately release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners.
The council's 15 member nations voiced "serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and its political impact" and reaffirmed three previous statements since 2007. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women.
They also urged the ruling junta to begin a genuine dialogue with the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and other political parties and ethnic groups. A Myanmar court on Tuesday convicted the Nobel Peace Prize laureate of violating the terms of her previous house arrest by sheltering an uninvited American visitor.
In a nod to Myanmar's colonial past, the council's member nations again pledged a commitment to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Myanmar, also known as Burma, but said that "the future of Myanmar lies in the hands of all of its people."
The U.N. estimates there are 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar.
Suu Kyi's sentence of three years in prison with hard labor was reduced to 18 months of house arrest, ensuring the pro-democracy leader cannot participate in the military junta's planned elections next year.
The council press statement — which is not legally binding — was read aloud outside the council chambers by British Ambassador John Sawers, this month's council president.
The U.S. had drafted a statement asking the council to condemn the conviction and sentencing and to issue it as a presidential statement, meaning it would become part of the Security Council's official record.
But even a nonbinding press statement, the most that permanent council members China and Russia would allow, was something of a victory for the other three permanent members, Britain, France and the United States. Only permanent members hold veto power.
China had opposed any action, and Russia, Vietnam and Libya had been skeptical of council intervention.
The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been detained for about 14 of the past 20 years for her nonviolent political activities, but this was the first time she faced a criminal trial. She had been under house arrest since 2003, but was taken to Yangon's Insein Prison in May for trial after American John Yettaw secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.
As the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, who was assassinated when she was 2 years old, Suu Kyi was educated at Oxford University in England and married a British academic in 1972.
In 1988 she rushed back to Burma, later renamed Myanmar, to care for her ailing mother and eventually helped found the National League for Democracy party. She was barred from running in elections called by the junta in May 1990.
Though her party won 392 of 495 seats in parliament, the military refused to honor the results. She became symbol of Myanmar's suppressed democracy — and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991.
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EU beefs up Myanmar sanctions
Thu Aug 13, 10:30 am ET
BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union says it is expanding its sanctions against Myanmar after the country sentenced pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house arrest.
The EU says it will freeze the assets of enterprises owned by members of Myanmar's ruling junta and people associated with them.
Judges responsible for the sentence against Suu Kyi will face a travel ban and will also have their assets frozen.
Suu Kyi was found guilty on Tuesday of violating the conditions of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home in May.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years.
Thu Aug 13, 10:30 am ET
BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union says it is expanding its sanctions against Myanmar after the country sentenced pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to an additional 18 months of house arrest.
The EU says it will freeze the assets of enterprises owned by members of Myanmar's ruling junta and people associated with them.
Judges responsible for the sentence against Suu Kyi will face a travel ban and will also have their assets frozen.
Suu Kyi was found guilty on Tuesday of violating the conditions of her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home in May.
The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been in detention for 14 of the last 20 years.
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ABS-CBNNEWS - UN Security Council to meet on Suu Kyi
08/12/2009 1:03 AM
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Security Council will meet Tuesday to discuss a Myanmar court decision to have democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi serve another 18 months of house arrest.
A statement from Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers, who chairs the 15-member body this month, said it would hold consultations at 3 pm (1900 GMT) to take up the court's verdict, which has triggered worldwide condemnation.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the council meeting was requested by France.
The Myanmar court convicted the 64-year-old opposition leader at the end of a marathon trial for breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her home.
Judges sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor and imprisonment, but military ruler Than Shwe signed a special order commuting the sentence and ordering her to serve out a year-and-a-half under house arrest.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was "deeply disappointed" by the verdict and demanded Suu Kyi's unconditional release.
Ban called on Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation.
"Unless she and all other political prisoners in Myanmar are released and allowed to participate in free and fair elections, the credibility of the political process will remain in doubt," he added.
08/12/2009 1:03 AM
UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations Security Council will meet Tuesday to discuss a Myanmar court decision to have democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi serve another 18 months of house arrest.
A statement from Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers, who chairs the 15-member body this month, said it would hold consultations at 3 pm (1900 GMT) to take up the court's verdict, which has triggered worldwide condemnation.
A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the council meeting was requested by France.
The Myanmar court convicted the 64-year-old opposition leader at the end of a marathon trial for breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her home.
Judges sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor and imprisonment, but military ruler Than Shwe signed a special order commuting the sentence and ordering her to serve out a year-and-a-half under house arrest.
Earlier, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he was "deeply disappointed" by the verdict and demanded Suu Kyi's unconditional release.
Ban called on Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation.
"Unless she and all other political prisoners in Myanmar are released and allowed to participate in free and fair elections, the credibility of the political process will remain in doubt," he added.
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Myanmar's Suu Kyi says conviction 'totally unfair'
Wed Aug 12, 2:53 pm ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called the verdict returning her to house arrest "totally unfair," but remains cheerful and alert, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Four of her lawyers were allowed to visit the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at her lakeside home for an hour to discuss an appeal of her conviction Tuesday on charges of violating the terms of her previous house arrest.
A Myanmar court found Suu Kyi, 64, guilty of sheltering an uninvited American visitor. Her sentence of three years in prison with hard labor was reduced to 18 months of house arrest by order of the head of the country's ruling military junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the conviction was totally unfair and the court's assessment of the case was not just," lawyer Nyan Win said. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women. Her defense had contended that it was the responsibility of the police guarding her house to keep out intruders.
Suu Kyi's defense team will appeal as soon as it receives a certified copy of the judgment from the district court, Nyan Win said.
The conviction, though expected, drew sharp criticism from world leaders and human rights groups, as well as promises of new European Union sanctions against Myanmar.
Her detention will keep her from participating in the junta's planned elections next year, the first polls since 1990, when her party won overwhelmingly but was not allowed to take power.
The U.N. Security Council's five permanent members met for more than an hour at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday but failed to reach agreement on how to respond to the verdict in Suu Kyi's case.
The entire 15-nation council also had met privately Tuesday before sending a U.S.-proposed draft statement back to diplomatic capitals for guidance. The U.S., Britain and France sought a condemnatory statement; China and Russia favored no response or, at best, a weak statement.
"We're working for a common position," said Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, though he acknowledged there were "shades" of disagreement.
British Ambassador John Sawers, this month's council president, said the five nations were "moving in the right direction" and would continue meeting privately but no action was likely until at least Thursday. The five major powers, he added, agreed there should at least be some "common expression."
The pro-democracy leader has been detained for about 14 of the past 20 years for her nonviolent political activities, but this was the first time she faced a criminal trial.
Suu Kyi had been under house arrest since 2003, but was taken to Yangon's Insein Prison in May for trial after American John Yettaw secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.
Yettaw was also convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest, as well as violating immigration laws and a ban on swimming in Inya Lake, on which Suu Kyi's house fronts. He was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor.
Suu Kyi was returned to her house Tuesday. Nyan Win said she was well and looked very happy to be home.
"She said she slept well last night," he told reporters. A new barbed-wire fence has been erected at the lakeside entrance to her home, where Yettaw entered.
Suu Kyi also told her lawyers she needed clarification from the authorities regarding the terms of her house arrest, regarding matters such as visitation rights and medical coverage.
Under the court's eight-point stipulation, Suu Kyi and two female companions who stay with her can receive visitors with prior permission from the authorities and have the right to medical treatment by doctors and nurses. Nyan Win said Suu Kyi wanted to know if she could be treated by her personal physician.
Among the statements of condemnation from around the world to Suu Kyi's conviction, a group of 14 Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called on the U.N. Security Council to take strong action against Myanmar.
The Dalai Lama issued his own message of concern Wednesday, appealing to Myanmar authorities "as a fellow Buddhist ... to show magnanimity and understanding" by releasing Suu Kyi.
President Barack Obama called the conviction a violation of the universal principle of human rights and said Suu Kyi should be released immediately.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Yettaw.
The country's state-run newspapers, which many in Myanmar normally don't bother to read, were sold out Wednesday with people eager to learn about the verdict.
"I am not surprised that (Suu Kyi) was sentenced to three years because that is what the government wants to do, keep her locked up during the elections," said Soe Nyunt, a 34-year-old grocery shop owner.
"It was at least a relief that Daw Suu is kept in her house. I had thought the government would keep her inside Insein Prison," said Moe Moe, a 45-year-old school teacher.
Wed Aug 12, 2:53 pm ET
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called the verdict returning her to house arrest "totally unfair," but remains cheerful and alert, her lawyer said Wednesday.
Four of her lawyers were allowed to visit the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at her lakeside home for an hour to discuss an appeal of her conviction Tuesday on charges of violating the terms of her previous house arrest.
A Myanmar court found Suu Kyi, 64, guilty of sheltering an uninvited American visitor. Her sentence of three years in prison with hard labor was reduced to 18 months of house arrest by order of the head of the country's ruling military junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said the conviction was totally unfair and the court's assessment of the case was not just," lawyer Nyan Win said. "Daw" is a term of respect for older women. Her defense had contended that it was the responsibility of the police guarding her house to keep out intruders.
Suu Kyi's defense team will appeal as soon as it receives a certified copy of the judgment from the district court, Nyan Win said.
The conviction, though expected, drew sharp criticism from world leaders and human rights groups, as well as promises of new European Union sanctions against Myanmar.
Her detention will keep her from participating in the junta's planned elections next year, the first polls since 1990, when her party won overwhelmingly but was not allowed to take power.
The U.N. Security Council's five permanent members met for more than an hour at U.N. headquarters in New York on Wednesday but failed to reach agreement on how to respond to the verdict in Suu Kyi's case.
The entire 15-nation council also had met privately Tuesday before sending a U.S.-proposed draft statement back to diplomatic capitals for guidance. The U.S., Britain and France sought a condemnatory statement; China and Russia favored no response or, at best, a weak statement.
"We're working for a common position," said Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, though he acknowledged there were "shades" of disagreement.
British Ambassador John Sawers, this month's council president, said the five nations were "moving in the right direction" and would continue meeting privately but no action was likely until at least Thursday. The five major powers, he added, agreed there should at least be some "common expression."
The pro-democracy leader has been detained for about 14 of the past 20 years for her nonviolent political activities, but this was the first time she faced a criminal trial.
Suu Kyi had been under house arrest since 2003, but was taken to Yangon's Insein Prison in May for trial after American John Yettaw secretly swam to her house and spent two days there.
Yettaw was also convicted of violating the terms of her house arrest, as well as violating immigration laws and a ban on swimming in Inya Lake, on which Suu Kyi's house fronts. He was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor.
Suu Kyi was returned to her house Tuesday. Nyan Win said she was well and looked very happy to be home.
"She said she slept well last night," he told reporters. A new barbed-wire fence has been erected at the lakeside entrance to her home, where Yettaw entered.
Suu Kyi also told her lawyers she needed clarification from the authorities regarding the terms of her house arrest, regarding matters such as visitation rights and medical coverage.
Under the court's eight-point stipulation, Suu Kyi and two female companions who stay with her can receive visitors with prior permission from the authorities and have the right to medical treatment by doctors and nurses. Nyan Win said Suu Kyi wanted to know if she could be treated by her personal physician.
Among the statements of condemnation from around the world to Suu Kyi's conviction, a group of 14 Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called on the U.N. Security Council to take strong action against Myanmar.
The Dalai Lama issued his own message of concern Wednesday, appealing to Myanmar authorities "as a fellow Buddhist ... to show magnanimity and understanding" by releasing Suu Kyi.
President Barack Obama called the conviction a violation of the universal principle of human rights and said Suu Kyi should be released immediately.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including Yettaw.
The country's state-run newspapers, which many in Myanmar normally don't bother to read, were sold out Wednesday with people eager to learn about the verdict.
"I am not surprised that (Suu Kyi) was sentenced to three years because that is what the government wants to do, keep her locked up during the elections," said Soe Nyunt, a 34-year-old grocery shop owner.
"It was at least a relief that Daw Suu is kept in her house. I had thought the government would keep her inside Insein Prison," said Moe Moe, a 45-year-old school teacher.
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Aung San Suu Kyi lawyers seek emergency UN action
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 55 mins ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Lawyers for Aung San Suu Kyi are seeking U.N. action to win her release after a Myanmar court extended her house arrest for 18 months.
A petition filed Tuesday with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, argues she is being arbitrarily detained in violation of international human rights law.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Myanmar last month but failed to meet with Suu Kyi, "strongly deplores" the court action and urged Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release" Suu Kyi, Ban's office said.
Washington-based Freedom Now advocacy group, which represents Suu Kyi, says the military-ruled country is violating its own laws to keep the Nobel Peace laureate behind bars until after the junta stages elections next year.
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer – 2 hrs 55 mins ago
UNITED NATIONS (AP) – Lawyers for Aung San Suu Kyi are seeking U.N. action to win her release after a Myanmar court extended her house arrest for 18 months.
A petition filed Tuesday with the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, Switzerland, argues she is being arbitrarily detained in violation of international human rights law.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who visited Myanmar last month but failed to meet with Suu Kyi, "strongly deplores" the court action and urged Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release" Suu Kyi, Ban's office said.
Washington-based Freedom Now advocacy group, which represents Suu Kyi, says the military-ruled country is violating its own laws to keep the Nobel Peace laureate behind bars until after the junta stages elections next year.
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Myanmar sentences Suu Kyi to more house arrest
1 hr 19 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – A Myanmar court convicted Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home. The head of the military-ruled country ordered the democracy leader to serve an 18-month sentence under house arrest.
The 64-year-old opposition leader has already spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention, mostly under house arrest, and the extension will remove her from the political scene when the junta stages elections next year.
The court — which also convicted the American, John Yettaw, and sentenced him to seven years with hard labor — drew immediate criticism from world leaders, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling it "monstrous."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Suu Kyi should never have been put on trial. French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the European Union to quickly adopt new sanctions, calling the verdict "brutal and unjust."
But Suu Kyi's term was less severe than the maximum sentence she faced — five years in prison — and shorter than the one the court initially ordered Tuesday — three years with hard labor.
Five minutes after that sentence was read out, Home Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Oo entered the courtroom and read aloud a special order from junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe, cutting the sentence in half and saying it could be served at home.
Than Shwe's order, signed Monday, likewise reduced the sentences of Suu Kyi's two female house companions, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, to 18 months. Both are members of her political party.
One of Suu Kyi's lawyers, Nyan Win, said the democracy leader told her defense team to proceed with an appeal and that they had applied for permission to meet with her Wednesday.
The junta leader said he commuted the sentences to "maintain community peace and stability" and because Suu Kyi was the daughter of Aung San, a revered hero who won Myanmar's independence from Britain.
It seemed likely it was in response to intense international pressure, including a call for Suu Kyi's release from the United Nations that was backed by China, Myanmar's key ally and benefactor.
South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned, however, that the reduced sentence was "not a concession — it is a manipulation of an illegal process. It must not be accepted by any government."
Clinton said Suu Kyi "should not have been tried, and she should not have been convicted."
Suu Kyi looked alert but tired during the 90-minute court session. She stood as the verdict was announced and then thanked foreign diplomats for attending her trial.
"I look forward to working with you in the future for the peace and prosperity of my country and the region," Suu Kyi said in a soft voice to diplomats seated nearby. She then was led out of the courtroom.
Officials said she was driven back to her lakeside villa in a six-car convoy. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the high-profile case.
One of her party members tied yellow ribbons at the gate and two nearby trees as a gesture of welcome. Suu Kyi had been in prison during the trial.
Yettaw — who swam across a lake the night of May 3, entered Suu Kyi's home uninvited and asked to spend two nights before trying to secretly swim back — was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor.
The timing of Yettaw's visit came just weeks before Suu Kyi's current six-year term of house arrest was to expire May 27. It sparked theories among Suu Kyi supporters that he was a pawn of the regime, while the junta insinuated he was being used by its exiled opponents.
Suu Kyi's trial has sparked international outrage and calls for her release and that of Myanmar's more than 2,000 other political prisoners. The sentence sparked angry reaction from across the globe.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance," Brown said, calling the verdict a "purely political sentence" aimed at keeping her out of the 2010 elections.
Burma Campaign UK, an activist group, called for a global arms embargo against Myanmar and said the junta was "determined to silence all pro-democracy voices in the country in the run up to rigged elections."
Suu Kyi's international lawyer, New York-based Jared Genser, said her most recent period of detention violated Myanmar's own laws.
"The real question is how the international community will react — will it do more than simply condemn this latest injustice?" he asked.
London-based Amnesty International called the sentence "shameful ... nothing more than legal and political theater."
The 53-year-old Yettaw, of Falcon, Missouri, was returned to Insein prison, the site of the trial, on Monday night after hospitalization for epileptic seizures.
The court sentenced him to three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi's house arrest. Yettaw was also sentenced to three years in prison for an immigration violation and to another year for swimming in a restricted zone.
Yettaw's lawyer Khin Maung Oo said his client would have to serve his sentence consecutively. He said he would appeal the decision within 60 days, asking the court for leniency.
"He was not surprised by the judgment. He's in good spirit, and he has moral courage," the lawyer said of Yettaw. He said Yettaw was "well" following his release from the hospital.
Yvonne Yettaw, a former wife and the mother of six of his children expressed surprise at the severity of the sentence.
"How is he going to do hard labor if he is so ill?" she told The Associated Press by phone from Palm Springs, California. "Maybe they'll realize he won't make it seven years and they'll send him home."
Yettaw, a devout Christian, earlier told his lawyer that he swam to Suu Kyi's residence to warn her of an assassination attempt that he had seen in a vision.
Yettaw was hospitalized last Monday after suffering seizures. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
1 hr 19 mins ago
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) – A Myanmar court convicted Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home. The head of the military-ruled country ordered the democracy leader to serve an 18-month sentence under house arrest.
The 64-year-old opposition leader has already spent 14 of the last 20 years in detention, mostly under house arrest, and the extension will remove her from the political scene when the junta stages elections next year.
The court — which also convicted the American, John Yettaw, and sentenced him to seven years with hard labor — drew immediate criticism from world leaders, with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown calling it "monstrous."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Suu Kyi should never have been put on trial. French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the European Union to quickly adopt new sanctions, calling the verdict "brutal and unjust."
But Suu Kyi's term was less severe than the maximum sentence she faced — five years in prison — and shorter than the one the court initially ordered Tuesday — three years with hard labor.
Five minutes after that sentence was read out, Home Minister Maj. Gen. Maung Oo entered the courtroom and read aloud a special order from junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe, cutting the sentence in half and saying it could be served at home.
Than Shwe's order, signed Monday, likewise reduced the sentences of Suu Kyi's two female house companions, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, to 18 months. Both are members of her political party.
One of Suu Kyi's lawyers, Nyan Win, said the democracy leader told her defense team to proceed with an appeal and that they had applied for permission to meet with her Wednesday.
The junta leader said he commuted the sentences to "maintain community peace and stability" and because Suu Kyi was the daughter of Aung San, a revered hero who won Myanmar's independence from Britain.
It seemed likely it was in response to intense international pressure, including a call for Suu Kyi's release from the United Nations that was backed by China, Myanmar's key ally and benefactor.
South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu warned, however, that the reduced sentence was "not a concession — it is a manipulation of an illegal process. It must not be accepted by any government."
Clinton said Suu Kyi "should not have been tried, and she should not have been convicted."
Suu Kyi looked alert but tired during the 90-minute court session. She stood as the verdict was announced and then thanked foreign diplomats for attending her trial.
"I look forward to working with you in the future for the peace and prosperity of my country and the region," Suu Kyi said in a soft voice to diplomats seated nearby. She then was led out of the courtroom.
Officials said she was driven back to her lakeside villa in a six-car convoy. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the high-profile case.
One of her party members tied yellow ribbons at the gate and two nearby trees as a gesture of welcome. Suu Kyi had been in prison during the trial.
Yettaw — who swam across a lake the night of May 3, entered Suu Kyi's home uninvited and asked to spend two nights before trying to secretly swim back — was sentenced to seven years in prison with hard labor.
The timing of Yettaw's visit came just weeks before Suu Kyi's current six-year term of house arrest was to expire May 27. It sparked theories among Suu Kyi supporters that he was a pawn of the regime, while the junta insinuated he was being used by its exiled opponents.
Suu Kyi's trial has sparked international outrage and calls for her release and that of Myanmar's more than 2,000 other political prisoners. The sentence sparked angry reaction from across the globe.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance," Brown said, calling the verdict a "purely political sentence" aimed at keeping her out of the 2010 elections.
Burma Campaign UK, an activist group, called for a global arms embargo against Myanmar and said the junta was "determined to silence all pro-democracy voices in the country in the run up to rigged elections."
Suu Kyi's international lawyer, New York-based Jared Genser, said her most recent period of detention violated Myanmar's own laws.
"The real question is how the international community will react — will it do more than simply condemn this latest injustice?" he asked.
London-based Amnesty International called the sentence "shameful ... nothing more than legal and political theater."
The 53-year-old Yettaw, of Falcon, Missouri, was returned to Insein prison, the site of the trial, on Monday night after hospitalization for epileptic seizures.
The court sentenced him to three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi's house arrest. Yettaw was also sentenced to three years in prison for an immigration violation and to another year for swimming in a restricted zone.
Yettaw's lawyer Khin Maung Oo said his client would have to serve his sentence consecutively. He said he would appeal the decision within 60 days, asking the court for leniency.
"He was not surprised by the judgment. He's in good spirit, and he has moral courage," the lawyer said of Yettaw. He said Yettaw was "well" following his release from the hospital.
Yvonne Yettaw, a former wife and the mother of six of his children expressed surprise at the severity of the sentence.
"How is he going to do hard labor if he is so ill?" she told The Associated Press by phone from Palm Springs, California. "Maybe they'll realize he won't make it seven years and they'll send him home."
Yettaw, a devout Christian, earlier told his lawyer that he swam to Suu Kyi's residence to warn her of an assassination attempt that he had seen in a vision.
Yettaw was hospitalized last Monday after suffering seizures. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
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Clinton: Conviction of Myanmar's Suu Kyi wrong
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 11, 8:16 am ET
GOMA, Congo (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Tuesday for the release of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying she "should not have been convicted" on a charge of violating house arrest.
Suu Kyi, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, has been in detention in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for 14 of the last 20 years, mostly under house arrest. She has now been ordered to serve an 18-month sentence for allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home.
"She should not have been tried. She should not have been convicted," Clinton told a news conference here. "We continue to call for her release."
Clinton said the United States is also concerned about the seven-year sentence imposed on the American, John Yettaw, who suffers from medical problems.
"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners including the American, John Yettaw," she said. "We are concerned about the harsh sentence imposed on him especially in light of his medical condition."
Monday's ruling by the head of the military-run country drew criticism from world leaders. Suu Kyi's trial has sparked international outrage and calls for her release and that of Myanmar's more than 2,000 other political prisoners.
Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Mo., swam across a lake, entered Suu Kyi's home uninvited and asked to spend two nights before trying to secretly swim back. He told his lawyer that he swam to Suu Kyi's residence to warn her of an assassination attempt that he had seen in a vision.
The court sentenced him to three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi's house arrest, three years in prison for an immigration violation and to another year for swimming in a restricted zone.
Yettaw was hospitalized last Monday after suffering seizures. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 11, 8:16 am ET
GOMA, Congo (AP) – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Tuesday for the release of Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, saying she "should not have been convicted" on a charge of violating house arrest.
Suu Kyi, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, has been in detention in Myanmar, also known as Burma, for 14 of the last 20 years, mostly under house arrest. She has now been ordered to serve an 18-month sentence for allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home.
"She should not have been tried. She should not have been convicted," Clinton told a news conference here. "We continue to call for her release."
Clinton said the United States is also concerned about the seven-year sentence imposed on the American, John Yettaw, who suffers from medical problems.
"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners including the American, John Yettaw," she said. "We are concerned about the harsh sentence imposed on him especially in light of his medical condition."
Monday's ruling by the head of the military-run country drew criticism from world leaders. Suu Kyi's trial has sparked international outrage and calls for her release and that of Myanmar's more than 2,000 other political prisoners.
Yettaw, 53, of Falcon, Mo., swam across a lake, entered Suu Kyi's home uninvited and asked to spend two nights before trying to secretly swim back. He told his lawyer that he swam to Suu Kyi's residence to warn her of an assassination attempt that he had seen in a vision.
The court sentenced him to three years in prison for breaching Suu Kyi's house arrest, three years in prison for an immigration violation and to another year for swimming in a restricted zone.
Yettaw was hospitalized last Monday after suffering seizures. He reportedly suffers from epilepsy, diabetes and other health problems, including post traumatic stress disorder from his service in the U.S. military.
*********************************************************
Myanmar's Suu Kyi still a potent force for change
By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 11, 6:37 am ET
BANGKOK (AP) – Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is back where the ruling generals want her: inside a crumbling mansion, lonely and isolated from the world.
But a fleeting emergence into public view showed that Suu Kyi's steely grace and charisma, along with her popularity, are intact. She remains a potentially potent force for change in a country that has seen virtually no deviation from harsh military rule for nearly half a century.
For now, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, arguably the world's most famous prisoner, will likely return to her daily meditation, listening to radio news broadcasts and waiting for the occasional censored mail, including letters from two sons she last saw a decade ago.
What continues to keep Suu Kyi tenacious and focused on bringing democracy to Myanmar are her deep Buddhist faith, rigorous self-discipline and the guiding influence of her parents, those close to her say. The only apparent chink in her armor is a fondness for dark chocolate.
Although set within the teeming city of Yangon, her police-ringed home might just as well be on another continent, removed from a downtrodden populace and a junta that extended her 14-year detention for another 18 months on Tuesday.
Suu Kyi was found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an American, John Yettaw, who swam across a lake to sneak uninvited into her compound. The 53-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison with hard labor.
During her 86-day trial, diplomats and supporters were impressed by Suu Kyi's grace under pressure, rebuking those who called Yettaw a fool, sharing her birthday chocolate cake with prison guards and thanking envoys for their support.
"Despite almost two decades of extraordinary pressure — more than half of it in detention — and agonizing personal sacrifices, she looked in remarkable shape," wrote British Ambassador Mark Canning. "Calm, dignified, upright, exuding quiet authority but no hint of bitterness toward the prosecution side."
Josef Silverstein, professor emeritus at Rutgers University and an expert on Myanmar, also called Burma, says that while she may never lead the country, she will always be influential.
"Don't write her off. If she is allowed to live, she has an important role to play in Burma's drama," he says.
Suu Kyi has sometimes been described as an accidental leader, having returned to her homeland in 1988 after two decades abroad to nurse her dying mother just as an uprising erupted against the military regime.
Daughter of the country's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, Suu Kyi was thrust into the forefront of the 1988 demonstrations until the military crushed them brutally and clamped her under house arrest.
But as a teenager Suu Kyi had developed an intense interest in her father who was gunned down by political rivals when she was just a toddler, seemingly absorbing his fierce sense of nationalist mission, military-like discipline and a stubborn streak.
Suu Kyi lived with her mother in India, attended Oxford University, then worked for the United Nations in New York and Bhutan.
Despite the long absence, Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said Suu Kyi had planned to come back one day to "complete her father's unfinished work, building a democratic country."
"While Suu Kyi's extreme fortitude can be considered an aspect of her natural character, without question her life has been shaped by her parentage," says Justin Wintle, author of the Suu Kyi biography "Perfect Hostage."
Close friends expect this grit to persist through the next phase of her incarceration in her mother's once grand two-story mansion, now gone to seed.
According to one, Su Su Lwin, Suu Kyi adheres to a strict daily routine, rising about 5 a.m., doing meditation and exercise, reading a great deal.
"She doesn't do anything excessively. She lives a very simple life," Su Su Lwin says. "She eats very little. She does like dark chocolate but even that she eats with a limit. She loves to dress up very nicely and neatly but she doesn't like extravagance."
Before her trial, Suu Kyi wasn't allowed telephone or Internet communications, but could get newspapers and listen to the radio. With no satellite dish on her compound, she was only able to watch state-run television.
Her contact with the outside world is unlikely to increase.
She last saw sons Alexander and Kim in 2000, the year after her husband — British academic Michael Aris — died of cancer. The sons, now both in their 30s, have been stripped of their Myanmar citizenship and barred from the country.
Suu Kyi was first arrested in 1989 and barred from contesting general elections called by the junta in May 1990. But her name inspired the opposition campaign and her party scored a landslide victory that the regime never recognized.
Suu Kyi has been offered an exit from her isolation: the junta gave her permission to leave the country when her husband died. But she refused, fearing she would never be allowed to return.
By DENIS D. GRAY, Associated Press Writer – Tue Aug 11, 6:37 am ET
BANGKOK (AP) – Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is back where the ruling generals want her: inside a crumbling mansion, lonely and isolated from the world.
But a fleeting emergence into public view showed that Suu Kyi's steely grace and charisma, along with her popularity, are intact. She remains a potentially potent force for change in a country that has seen virtually no deviation from harsh military rule for nearly half a century.
For now, the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate, arguably the world's most famous prisoner, will likely return to her daily meditation, listening to radio news broadcasts and waiting for the occasional censored mail, including letters from two sons she last saw a decade ago.
What continues to keep Suu Kyi tenacious and focused on bringing democracy to Myanmar are her deep Buddhist faith, rigorous self-discipline and the guiding influence of her parents, those close to her say. The only apparent chink in her armor is a fondness for dark chocolate.
Although set within the teeming city of Yangon, her police-ringed home might just as well be on another continent, removed from a downtrodden populace and a junta that extended her 14-year detention for another 18 months on Tuesday.
Suu Kyi was found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest by harboring an American, John Yettaw, who swam across a lake to sneak uninvited into her compound. The 53-year-old man was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in prison with hard labor.
During her 86-day trial, diplomats and supporters were impressed by Suu Kyi's grace under pressure, rebuking those who called Yettaw a fool, sharing her birthday chocolate cake with prison guards and thanking envoys for their support.
"Despite almost two decades of extraordinary pressure — more than half of it in detention — and agonizing personal sacrifices, she looked in remarkable shape," wrote British Ambassador Mark Canning. "Calm, dignified, upright, exuding quiet authority but no hint of bitterness toward the prosecution side."
Josef Silverstein, professor emeritus at Rutgers University and an expert on Myanmar, also called Burma, says that while she may never lead the country, she will always be influential.
"Don't write her off. If she is allowed to live, she has an important role to play in Burma's drama," he says.
Suu Kyi has sometimes been described as an accidental leader, having returned to her homeland in 1988 after two decades abroad to nurse her dying mother just as an uprising erupted against the military regime.
Daughter of the country's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, Suu Kyi was thrust into the forefront of the 1988 demonstrations until the military crushed them brutally and clamped her under house arrest.
But as a teenager Suu Kyi had developed an intense interest in her father who was gunned down by political rivals when she was just a toddler, seemingly absorbing his fierce sense of nationalist mission, military-like discipline and a stubborn streak.
Suu Kyi lived with her mother in India, attended Oxford University, then worked for the United Nations in New York and Bhutan.
Despite the long absence, Aung Din, executive director of the U.S. Campaign for Burma, said Suu Kyi had planned to come back one day to "complete her father's unfinished work, building a democratic country."
"While Suu Kyi's extreme fortitude can be considered an aspect of her natural character, without question her life has been shaped by her parentage," says Justin Wintle, author of the Suu Kyi biography "Perfect Hostage."
Close friends expect this grit to persist through the next phase of her incarceration in her mother's once grand two-story mansion, now gone to seed.
According to one, Su Su Lwin, Suu Kyi adheres to a strict daily routine, rising about 5 a.m., doing meditation and exercise, reading a great deal.
"She doesn't do anything excessively. She lives a very simple life," Su Su Lwin says. "She eats very little. She does like dark chocolate but even that she eats with a limit. She loves to dress up very nicely and neatly but she doesn't like extravagance."
Before her trial, Suu Kyi wasn't allowed telephone or Internet communications, but could get newspapers and listen to the radio. With no satellite dish on her compound, she was only able to watch state-run television.
Her contact with the outside world is unlikely to increase.
She last saw sons Alexander and Kim in 2000, the year after her husband — British academic Michael Aris — died of cancer. The sons, now both in their 30s, have been stripped of their Myanmar citizenship and barred from the country.
Suu Kyi was first arrested in 1989 and barred from contesting general elections called by the junta in May 1990. But her name inspired the opposition campaign and her party scored a landslide victory that the regime never recognized.
Suu Kyi has been offered an exit from her isolation: the junta gave her permission to leave the country when her husband died. But she refused, fearing she would never be allowed to return.
*********************************************************
In historic first, US senator to meet Myanmar leader
Wed Aug 12, 10:23 pm ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Democratic Senator Jim Webb is due to meet Myanmar supremo Than Shwe later this week in the first-ever encounter between a senior US official and the junta strongman, Webb's office said Thursday.
The visit by Webb, who is close to US President Barack Obama, comes after the Than Shwe regime was assailed by international outrage for extending democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for another 18 months.
"Later this week, US Senator Jim Webb is scheduled to meet with leaders at the highest levels of the national government in Burma (Myanmar), including Senior General Than Shwe," a statement from Webb's office said.
"If the Shwe meeting takes place it will be the first time that a senior American official has ever met with Burma's top leader," it said, noting also that no member of Congress has visited Myanmar in over a decade.
The only time Than Shwe, who assumed power in 1992, has met a US official is believed to have been when William Berger, head of a US disaster assistance team, delivered a planeload of aid to Yangon after Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Webb, who arrived in Laos Thursday to kick off a two-week tour of Southeast Asia, is scheduled to visit Myanmar this weekend.
"It is vitally important that the United States re-engage with Southeast Asia at all levels," Webb said in another statement announcing his arrival in the Lao capital Vientiane, where he was due to hold a press briefing Thursday.
Also convicted along with Suu Kyi was US man John Yettaw, who triggered her latest trial with a bizarre incident in May when he swam to her lakeside house in Yangon.
The 54-year-old US military veteran, who is epileptic and diabetic, was sentenced to seven years of hard labour and imprisonment.
Obama demanded Yettaw's immediate release, along with Suu Kyi's and that of thousands of political prisoners held in Myanmar's notorious jails ahead of elections scheduled for next year.
Webb -- a hard-nosed Vietnam War veteran who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs -- was also to visit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia over his two-week tour.
The senator, a former Republican defence official who has authored military works, was seen as a potential vice presidential pick for Obama during last year's US election campaign but was quick to rule himself out of the running.
Wed Aug 12, 10:23 pm ET
BANGKOK (AFP) – Democratic Senator Jim Webb is due to meet Myanmar supremo Than Shwe later this week in the first-ever encounter between a senior US official and the junta strongman, Webb's office said Thursday.
The visit by Webb, who is close to US President Barack Obama, comes after the Than Shwe regime was assailed by international outrage for extending democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest for another 18 months.
"Later this week, US Senator Jim Webb is scheduled to meet with leaders at the highest levels of the national government in Burma (Myanmar), including Senior General Than Shwe," a statement from Webb's office said.
"If the Shwe meeting takes place it will be the first time that a senior American official has ever met with Burma's top leader," it said, noting also that no member of Congress has visited Myanmar in over a decade.
The only time Than Shwe, who assumed power in 1992, has met a US official is believed to have been when William Berger, head of a US disaster assistance team, delivered a planeload of aid to Yangon after Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Webb, who arrived in Laos Thursday to kick off a two-week tour of Southeast Asia, is scheduled to visit Myanmar this weekend.
"It is vitally important that the United States re-engage with Southeast Asia at all levels," Webb said in another statement announcing his arrival in the Lao capital Vientiane, where he was due to hold a press briefing Thursday.
Also convicted along with Suu Kyi was US man John Yettaw, who triggered her latest trial with a bizarre incident in May when he swam to her lakeside house in Yangon.
The 54-year-old US military veteran, who is epileptic and diabetic, was sentenced to seven years of hard labour and imprisonment.
Obama demanded Yettaw's immediate release, along with Suu Kyi's and that of thousands of political prisoners held in Myanmar's notorious jails ahead of elections scheduled for next year.
Webb -- a hard-nosed Vietnam War veteran who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and Pacific affairs -- was also to visit Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia over his two-week tour.
The senator, a former Republican defence official who has authored military works, was seen as a potential vice presidential pick for Obama during last year's US election campaign but was quick to rule himself out of the running.
*********************************************************
Canada calls Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest 'vindictive'
1 hr 6 mins ago
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada's prime minister Tuesday "strongly condemned" a further 18-months of house arrest handed to Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, saying it is "unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive."
"Canada strongly condemns the Burmese regime's decision to sentence Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months house arrest," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. Canada refers to Myanmar by its former name, Burma.
"This decision is clearly not in accordance with the rule of law: the charges laid against her were baseless and her trial did not come close to meeting international standards of due process.
"Her continued detention is unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive," he said.
A Myanmar court convicted the 64-year-old opposition leader of breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her home.
Judges sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor and imprisonment, but military ruler Than Shwe signed a special order commuting the sentence and ordering her to serve out a year-and-a-half under house arrest.
Suu Kyi has been kept in detention for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, since the military regime refused to recognize her National League for Democracy's landslide victory in elections in 1990.
Harper accused Myanmar's ruling generals of having "manufactured an excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi in detention to ensure she will not be able to participate in the proposed 2010 elections."
"Canada calls for the regime to unconditionally free all political prisoners and allow all citizens, including opposition groups, to freely participate in the electoral process," he said.
Last year, Canada made Suu Kyi an honorary citizen in recognition of her "long and courageous struggle to promote freedom and democracy" in her homeland.
1 hr 6 mins ago
OTTAWA (AFP) – Canada's prime minister Tuesday "strongly condemned" a further 18-months of house arrest handed to Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, saying it is "unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive."
"Canada strongly condemns the Burmese regime's decision to sentence Aung San Suu Kyi to a further 18 months house arrest," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said in a statement. Canada refers to Myanmar by its former name, Burma.
"This decision is clearly not in accordance with the rule of law: the charges laid against her were baseless and her trial did not come close to meeting international standards of due process.
"Her continued detention is unwarranted, unjustified, and vindictive," he said.
A Myanmar court convicted the 64-year-old opposition leader of breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which an American man swam uninvited to her home.
Judges sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor and imprisonment, but military ruler Than Shwe signed a special order commuting the sentence and ordering her to serve out a year-and-a-half under house arrest.
Suu Kyi has been kept in detention for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, since the military regime refused to recognize her National League for Democracy's landslide victory in elections in 1990.
Harper accused Myanmar's ruling generals of having "manufactured an excuse to keep Aung San Suu Kyi in detention to ensure she will not be able to participate in the proposed 2010 elections."
"Canada calls for the regime to unconditionally free all political prisoners and allow all citizens, including opposition groups, to freely participate in the electoral process," he said.
Last year, Canada made Suu Kyi an honorary citizen in recognition of her "long and courageous struggle to promote freedom and democracy" in her homeland.
*********************************************************
PM 'angry' at Aung San Suu Kyi guilty verdict
Tue Aug 11, 5:08 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday he was "saddened and angry" at the verdict in the "sham trial" of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
He called for the United Nations Security Council to impose a worldwide embargo on the sale of arms to the Myanmar junta.
Brown said her "monstrous" prosecution, designed to stop her from participating in next year's planned elections, meant the poll would have no legitimacy.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, was ordered to stay under house arrest for 18 months after a prison court in Yangon convicted the Nobel laureate at the end of a trial which generated internationally condemnation.
"I am both saddened and angry at the verdict today, August 11, following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi," Brown said in a statement.
"The news -- that she has been found guilty and sentenced to three years' hard labour but that this has been 'mitigated' to a suspended sentence of 1.5 years under house arrest -- is further proof that the military regime in Burma is determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law and in defiance of international opinion.
"This is a purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime's planned elections next year.
"So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance.
"I have always made clear that the United Kingdom would respond positively to any signs of progress on democratic reform in Burma. But with the generals explicitly rejecting that course today, the international community must take action.
"The European Union has agreed to impose tough new sanctions targeting the economic interests of the regime.
"I also believe that the UN Security Council -- whose will has been flouted -- must also now respond resolutely and impose a world-wide ban on the sale of arms to the regime.
"My thoughts today are with Aung San Suu Kyi -- the human face of Burma's tragedy -- and with the people of Burma who suffer on a daily basis."
Tue Aug 11, 5:08 am ET
LONDON (AFP) – Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday he was "saddened and angry" at the verdict in the "sham trial" of Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.
He called for the United Nations Security Council to impose a worldwide embargo on the sale of arms to the Myanmar junta.
Brown said her "monstrous" prosecution, designed to stop her from participating in next year's planned elections, meant the poll would have no legitimacy.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, was ordered to stay under house arrest for 18 months after a prison court in Yangon convicted the Nobel laureate at the end of a trial which generated internationally condemnation.
"I am both saddened and angry at the verdict today, August 11, following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi," Brown said in a statement.
"The news -- that she has been found guilty and sentenced to three years' hard labour but that this has been 'mitigated' to a suspended sentence of 1.5 years under house arrest -- is further proof that the military regime in Burma is determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law and in defiance of international opinion.
"This is a purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime's planned elections next year.
"So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance.
"I have always made clear that the United Kingdom would respond positively to any signs of progress on democratic reform in Burma. But with the generals explicitly rejecting that course today, the international community must take action.
"The European Union has agreed to impose tough new sanctions targeting the economic interests of the regime.
"I also believe that the UN Security Council -- whose will has been flouted -- must also now respond resolutely and impose a world-wide ban on the sale of arms to the regime.
"My thoughts today are with Aung San Suu Kyi -- the human face of Burma's tragedy -- and with the people of Burma who suffer on a daily basis."
*********************************************************
Aug 11, 2009 | 2:26PM
NASDAQ - UN Head Demands Release Of Myanmar Activist Aung San Suu Kyi
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is "deeply disappointed" that Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was handed another 18 months of house arrest and demands her unconditional release, his press office said Tuesday.
"The Secretary General is deeply disappointed by the verdict in respect of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (and) strongly deplores this decision," a U.N. statement said.
Ban called on Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation."
NASDAQ - UN Head Demands Release Of Myanmar Activist Aung San Suu Kyi
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) -- U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon is "deeply disappointed" that Myanmar's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was handed another 18 months of house arrest and demands her unconditional release, his press office said Tuesday.
"The Secretary General is deeply disappointed by the verdict in respect of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (and) strongly deplores this decision," a U.N. statement said.
Ban called on Myanmar's ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation."
*********************************************************
Q+A: Who will hold the power in post-election Myanmar?
Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:16am EDT
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is almost certain to play no part in Myanmar's multi-party elections next year after being confined to house detention for 18 months for breaking a security law.
Critics believe Myanmar's military rulers used the trial to prevent her from campaigning ahead of the elections, which are the first since 1990, when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won in a landslide but never allowed to rule.
The government says the election will be the final stage of its seven-step democratic "road map".
WHY IS MYANMAR HOLDING ELECTIONS?
Sanctions have crippled the country's economy and he regime's refusal to carry out reforms, release political prisoners and halt human rights abuses have made it an international pariah that the West refuses to do business with.
Analysts say Myanmar wants to be a part of the international community and boost trade, but the generals know they will have to relinquish power to achieve this.
They are hoping the elections will legitimize the regime in the eyes of the international community -- particularly India, China and Thailand -- whose vital trade keeps the country afloat.
WHEN WILL THE ELECTION TAKE PLACE?
No timeframe has been decided and much remains to be done.
The generals have yet to draft election laws that will detail how the vote will be conducted and who can stand. No election commission has been appointed to oversee the polls.
The junta has rejected international offers of monitors as interference in its affairs.
WHY IS SUU KYI SEEN AS A THREAT?
The charismatic and hugely popular Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, remains the biggest threat to the military's grip on power, as was shown when her NLD party won 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats in the 1990 vote.
Because of her rousing speeches and her ability to mobilize tens of thousands of people for pro-democracy rallies, the regime has kept her under lock and key for 14 of the past 20 years.
"They are extremely afraid of Suu Kyi and the influence she has on the people, especially in the lead-up to the elections," said Debbie Stothard from the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.
WHO WILL HOLD POWER IN POST-ELECTION MYANMAR?
A new constitution, drafted mainly by military officers and civil servants, was approved in a referendum last year and aims to turn Myanmar into a "discipline-flourishing democracy", led by a civilian government elected by the people.
Junta supremo Than Shwe said last year the military had a "sincere aim of developing the country without any craving for power". Few are convinced.
A quarter of the 440 seats in parliament will go to the military. Retired generals can take additional seats not included in the military's 25 percent quota.
The constitution also states that the army commander-in-chief will remain the country's most powerful figure, able to tear up the charter, appoint key ministers and take overall power "in times of emergency".
WHO WILL TAKE PART?
The regime recognizes 10 political parties, but it is not yet known how many plan to take part. The NLD, the National Unity Party, Shan Nationalities League for Democracy -- the top three performers in the 1990 polls -- are expected to run again.
The NLD, which has been at the forefront of Myanmar's pro-democracy struggle, has yet to confirm it will take part. Insiders say it is divided between older members who reject the polls and others who are willing to give them a chance.
What is not in doubt is that Suu Kyi will not be running for office. Regardless of the guilty verdict, her marriage to a foreigner -- British academic Michael Aris, who died in 1999 -- and British citizenship of her children means she cannot stand.
Analysts say the junta will likely form its own nominee parties fronted by civilian proxies. With more than 2,000 activists and political opponents serving prison terms, the polls will be far from inclusive.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER THE ELECTION?
Than Shwe recently told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the next time he visited Myanmar, he and his inner circle of army generals would all be civilians.
But few are convinced the regime's top brass will relinquish power. Analysts expect the men in green will still pull the strings, with the "road map" merely a blueprint for the army to legitimize the grip on power it has held since a 1962 coup.
"There won't be change of any real substance, just a lot fewer people around in military uniform," said Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Thailand, now a Myanmar analyst.
"It's not so much the election that's important, more the uncertainty about what happens after it."
Wed Aug 12, 2009 7:16am EDT
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is almost certain to play no part in Myanmar's multi-party elections next year after being confined to house detention for 18 months for breaking a security law.
Critics believe Myanmar's military rulers used the trial to prevent her from campaigning ahead of the elections, which are the first since 1990, when Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party won in a landslide but never allowed to rule.
The government says the election will be the final stage of its seven-step democratic "road map".
WHY IS MYANMAR HOLDING ELECTIONS?
Sanctions have crippled the country's economy and he regime's refusal to carry out reforms, release political prisoners and halt human rights abuses have made it an international pariah that the West refuses to do business with.
Analysts say Myanmar wants to be a part of the international community and boost trade, but the generals know they will have to relinquish power to achieve this.
They are hoping the elections will legitimize the regime in the eyes of the international community -- particularly India, China and Thailand -- whose vital trade keeps the country afloat.
WHEN WILL THE ELECTION TAKE PLACE?
No timeframe has been decided and much remains to be done.
The generals have yet to draft election laws that will detail how the vote will be conducted and who can stand. No election commission has been appointed to oversee the polls.
The junta has rejected international offers of monitors as interference in its affairs.
WHY IS SUU KYI SEEN AS A THREAT?
The charismatic and hugely popular Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, remains the biggest threat to the military's grip on power, as was shown when her NLD party won 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats in the 1990 vote.
Because of her rousing speeches and her ability to mobilize tens of thousands of people for pro-democracy rallies, the regime has kept her under lock and key for 14 of the past 20 years.
"They are extremely afraid of Suu Kyi and the influence she has on the people, especially in the lead-up to the elections," said Debbie Stothard from the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.
WHO WILL HOLD POWER IN POST-ELECTION MYANMAR?
A new constitution, drafted mainly by military officers and civil servants, was approved in a referendum last year and aims to turn Myanmar into a "discipline-flourishing democracy", led by a civilian government elected by the people.
Junta supremo Than Shwe said last year the military had a "sincere aim of developing the country without any craving for power". Few are convinced.
A quarter of the 440 seats in parliament will go to the military. Retired generals can take additional seats not included in the military's 25 percent quota.
The constitution also states that the army commander-in-chief will remain the country's most powerful figure, able to tear up the charter, appoint key ministers and take overall power "in times of emergency".
WHO WILL TAKE PART?
The regime recognizes 10 political parties, but it is not yet known how many plan to take part. The NLD, the National Unity Party, Shan Nationalities League for Democracy -- the top three performers in the 1990 polls -- are expected to run again.
The NLD, which has been at the forefront of Myanmar's pro-democracy struggle, has yet to confirm it will take part. Insiders say it is divided between older members who reject the polls and others who are willing to give them a chance.
What is not in doubt is that Suu Kyi will not be running for office. Regardless of the guilty verdict, her marriage to a foreigner -- British academic Michael Aris, who died in 1999 -- and British citizenship of her children means she cannot stand.
Analysts say the junta will likely form its own nominee parties fronted by civilian proxies. With more than 2,000 activists and political opponents serving prison terms, the polls will be far from inclusive.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN AFTER THE ELECTION?
Than Shwe recently told U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that the next time he visited Myanmar, he and his inner circle of army generals would all be civilians.
But few are convinced the regime's top brass will relinquish power. Analysts expect the men in green will still pull the strings, with the "road map" merely a blueprint for the army to legitimize the grip on power it has held since a 1962 coup.
"There won't be change of any real substance, just a lot fewer people around in military uniform," said Derek Tonkin, a former British ambassador to Thailand, now a Myanmar analyst.
"It's not so much the election that's important, more the uncertainty about what happens after it."
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UN's Ban deplores Suu Kyi verdict in Myanmar
Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:11am EDT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he strongly deplored the 18-month house detention sentence passed on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday.
A statement issued by his spokesperson said Ban urged Myanmar's military government "to immediately and unconditionally release" Nobel laureate Suu Kyi and to "engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation."
"Unless she and all other political prisoners in Myanmar are released and allowed to participate in free and fair elections, the credibility of the political process will remain in doubt," the statement said.
U.N. diplomats said it was likely the Security Council would meet later on Tuesday to discuss the verdict passed for violation of an internal security law.
Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:11am EDT
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he strongly deplored the 18-month house detention sentence passed on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday.
A statement issued by his spokesperson said Ban urged Myanmar's military government "to immediately and unconditionally release" Nobel laureate Suu Kyi and to "engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation."
"Unless she and all other political prisoners in Myanmar are released and allowed to participate in free and fair elections, the credibility of the political process will remain in doubt," the statement said.
U.N. diplomats said it was likely the Security Council would meet later on Tuesday to discuss the verdict passed for violation of an internal security law.
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W.House denounces Myanmar's Suu Kyi conviction
Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:47pm EDT
PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Aug 11 (Reuters) - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs criticized Myanmar on Tuesday for the conviction of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"This is not somebody who should have been tried, certainly not somebody who should have been convicted," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to New Hampshire with President Barack Obama.
Obama was expected to issue a written statement later about Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. She was convicted of violating an internal security law after an uninvited American visited her house where she was already under detention.
Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:47pm EDT
PORTSMOUTH, N.H., Aug 11 (Reuters) - White House spokesman Robert Gibbs criticized Myanmar on Tuesday for the conviction of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"This is not somebody who should have been tried, certainly not somebody who should have been convicted," Gibbs told reporters aboard Air Force One on a flight to New Hampshire with President Barack Obama.
Obama was expected to issue a written statement later about Suu Kyi, who was sentenced to 18 months of house arrest. She was convicted of violating an internal security law after an uninvited American visited her house where she was already under detention.
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Sanctions on Myanmar
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:07pm IST
(Reuters) - The European Union said it would toughen its sanctions against Myanmar after Tuesday's latest conviction of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and France and Britain called for global arms and economic embargoes.
Here is an overview of existing sanctions on the former Burma and its rulers:
EU SANCTIONS:
-- The EU adopted a Common Position on Myanmar in 1996 including a ban on the sale or transfer from the EU of arms or weapons expertise to Myanmar, or of any equipment that might be used for internal repression.
-- EU governments tightened sanctions after a crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks in September 2007, targeting 1,207 firms with measures including visa bans and asset freezes.
-- In April the EU extended for another year a visa ban and asset freezes on members of the Myanmar military government and its backers. It has long called for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
-- France said on Tuesday there should be a global embargo on arms sales to Myanmar and economic sanctions focused on its key exports, timber and rubies. Britain called for the U.N. Security Council to impose a global arms embargo.
U.S. SANCTIONS:
-- The United States first imposed broad sanctions in 1988 after the junta's crackdown on student-led protests. It banned new investment in Myanmar by U.S. persons or entities in 1997.
-- Washington has gradually tightened sanctions to try to force Myanmar's generals into political rapprochement with Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 but was kept out of power by the junta.
-- President Barack Obama renewed the U.S. sanctions in May. Suu Kyi's latest trial has dashed the already slim chances that these will be eased.
-- In July 2008, the Treasury moved to block the assets and transactions of Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and the Myanmar Economic Corp and their subsidiaries.
-- The moves banned American individuals and businesses from transactions with the firms and froze any assets they had under U.S. jurisdiction.
-- The Burma Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 banned all imports from Myanmar, restricted financial transactions, froze the assets of certain Myanmar financial institutions and extended visa restrictions on junta officials.
OTHER SANCTIONS:
AUSTRALIA -- Has maintained visa restrictions on senior junta figures and a ban on defence exports since 1988.
Announced financial sanctions in October 2007 against Myanmar's ruling generals and their families -- over 400 individuals in all.
CANADA -- Imposed sanctions in November 2007 banning exports to Myanmar, except for humanitarian goods, and barring imports. It also froze the Canadian assets of Myanmar citizens connected with the junta. Canada also prohibited the provision of financial services and the export of technical data to Myanmar, and banned new investment by Canadians.
NEW ZEALAND -- Has a long-standing ban on visas for military leaders and their families.
JAPAN -- Japan cut aid to Myanmar in October 2007.
ASIA -- Most Asian governments have favoured a policy of engagement towards Myanmar.
China and India have been silent on the detention of Suu Kyi but the Philippines said it was "deeply troubled and outraged over the filing of trumped-up charges".
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:07pm IST
(Reuters) - The European Union said it would toughen its sanctions against Myanmar after Tuesday's latest conviction of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and France and Britain called for global arms and economic embargoes.
Here is an overview of existing sanctions on the former Burma and its rulers:
EU SANCTIONS:
-- The EU adopted a Common Position on Myanmar in 1996 including a ban on the sale or transfer from the EU of arms or weapons expertise to Myanmar, or of any equipment that might be used for internal repression.
-- EU governments tightened sanctions after a crackdown on pro-democracy protests led by Buddhist monks in September 2007, targeting 1,207 firms with measures including visa bans and asset freezes.
-- In April the EU extended for another year a visa ban and asset freezes on members of the Myanmar military government and its backers. It has long called for the release of Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.
-- France said on Tuesday there should be a global embargo on arms sales to Myanmar and economic sanctions focused on its key exports, timber and rubies. Britain called for the U.N. Security Council to impose a global arms embargo.
U.S. SANCTIONS:
-- The United States first imposed broad sanctions in 1988 after the junta's crackdown on student-led protests. It banned new investment in Myanmar by U.S. persons or entities in 1997.
-- Washington has gradually tightened sanctions to try to force Myanmar's generals into political rapprochement with Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 but was kept out of power by the junta.
-- President Barack Obama renewed the U.S. sanctions in May. Suu Kyi's latest trial has dashed the already slim chances that these will be eased.
-- In July 2008, the Treasury moved to block the assets and transactions of Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd and the Myanmar Economic Corp and their subsidiaries.
-- The moves banned American individuals and businesses from transactions with the firms and froze any assets they had under U.S. jurisdiction.
-- The Burma Freedom and Democracy Act of 2003 banned all imports from Myanmar, restricted financial transactions, froze the assets of certain Myanmar financial institutions and extended visa restrictions on junta officials.
OTHER SANCTIONS:
AUSTRALIA -- Has maintained visa restrictions on senior junta figures and a ban on defence exports since 1988.
Announced financial sanctions in October 2007 against Myanmar's ruling generals and their families -- over 400 individuals in all.
CANADA -- Imposed sanctions in November 2007 banning exports to Myanmar, except for humanitarian goods, and barring imports. It also froze the Canadian assets of Myanmar citizens connected with the junta. Canada also prohibited the provision of financial services and the export of technical data to Myanmar, and banned new investment by Canadians.
NEW ZEALAND -- Has a long-standing ban on visas for military leaders and their families.
JAPAN -- Japan cut aid to Myanmar in October 2007.
ASIA -- Most Asian governments have favoured a policy of engagement towards Myanmar.
China and India have been silent on the detention of Suu Kyi but the Philippines said it was "deeply troubled and outraged over the filing of trumped-up charges".
*********************************************************
Is Myanmar joining nuclear club with North Korea aid?
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:27am EDT
By Bill Tarrant - Analysis
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A spate of reports that North Korea may be helping fellow pariah state Myanmar join the nuclear club has underlined concerns over Pyongyang's proliferation activities since it renounced disarmament talks and tested a bomb.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted the issue at a regional security meeting in Thailand last month, saying she was worried about possible nuclear transfers to Myanmar -- though stopping short of saying any had taken place. Indian authorities have detained a North Korean ship and are searching it for radioactive material, the first case of a ship being detained and searched under U.N. sanctions adopted in June following North Korea's atomic test the month before.
The MV Mu San dropped anchor off the Andaman islands last Wednesday without permission and was detained by the coastguard after a chase lasting several hours. Indian officials said they were trying to determine if Myanmar had been on its route.
"With increasing reports of North Korea helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor, any vessel floating in Indian waters without a possible reason will be checked and India is rightly concerned," said Naresh Chandra, a former envoy to Washington.
A nuclear-armed Myanmar, which lies between Asia's two nuclear powers India and China, poses a major proliferation risk in the region, particularly among its Southeast Asian neighbors, who have proclaimed the region a nuclear weapons-free zone.
SECRET NUCLEAR PLANT
The Sydney Morning Herald reported recently that North Korea is helping Myanmar build a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant in a drive to build an atomic bomb by 2014.
The "secret plant" is supposedly hidden inside a mountain at Naung Laing in northern Myanmar and runs parallel to a research reactor that Russia has agreed to help build at another site, the Herald said, citing evidence from defectors.
The research reactor, groundbreaking for which is scheduled in January, has not yet come under the inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The agency asked the former Burma two years ago to host an IAEA team, following initial reports of its reactor deal with Russia, one knowledgeable official said, but the junta has yet to respond.
One of the defectors in the Herald's report, a former army officer, told Australian National University professor Desmond Ball that he was trained in a 1,000-man "nuclear battalion" and Myanmar had provided yellowcake uranium to North Korea and Iran.
The defectors also said North Korean had helped build tunnels that could be used to hide secret nuclear facilities. Some analysts believe, however, that the junta, which has expressed fears of a U.S. attack, could be building tunnels as elaborate air raid shelters.
Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar now at Australian National University, says he is skeptical about the Herald report, noting defectors are notoriously unreliable.
"I wasn't entirely convinced the evidence they were citing was pointing to a nuclear weapons program. It could have been a nuclear power program," he told Reuters.
"There's plenty of evidence of a military relationship and also a suggestion over a long period that the Burmese army is interested in acquiring missiles from a country like North Korea, but not necessarily a nuclear-armed missile."
Myanmar broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983 after North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the visiting South Korean prime minister, but ties were restored in 2007.
Wilson said that while Myanmar has known reserves of uranium, no evidence had emerged it has been refining it into "yellowcake or anything else for that matter".
He said it was possible Myanmar was bartering uranium ore for conventional weapons, maybe even missile parts or technology.
NORTH KOREA MARKETING
Days before Clinton spoke in Thailand, a U.S. destroyer tailed a North Korean cargo ship, the Kang Nam I, believed to be taking small arms to Myanmar, forcing it eventually to turn around and go home.
Weapons exports are a key source of revenue for North Korea's ramshackle economy. Its May nuclear test may have been as much a marketing ploy to pique the interest of potential rogue buyers as a move in its geopolitical chess game.
In 2007, Israeli jets destroyed a nuclear reactor the North Koreans had helped to build. Iran has used North Korean technology in some of its missiles, and analysts fear Pyongyang could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.
Some analysts say the threat of a nuclear deterrent may be just what the military regime in impoverished and isolated Myanmar is really after.
Wilson does not buy that.
North Korea actually faces a nuclear threat from the United States in North Asia. Myanmar does not.
"Why would the Burmese army want to acquire nuclear weapons for national security? It would actually make them a target. It wouldn't help them with any threats they face, which are all of a conventional nature."
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:27am EDT
By Bill Tarrant - Analysis
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A spate of reports that North Korea may be helping fellow pariah state Myanmar join the nuclear club has underlined concerns over Pyongyang's proliferation activities since it renounced disarmament talks and tested a bomb.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton highlighted the issue at a regional security meeting in Thailand last month, saying she was worried about possible nuclear transfers to Myanmar -- though stopping short of saying any had taken place. Indian authorities have detained a North Korean ship and are searching it for radioactive material, the first case of a ship being detained and searched under U.N. sanctions adopted in June following North Korea's atomic test the month before.
The MV Mu San dropped anchor off the Andaman islands last Wednesday without permission and was detained by the coastguard after a chase lasting several hours. Indian officials said they were trying to determine if Myanmar had been on its route.
"With increasing reports of North Korea helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor, any vessel floating in Indian waters without a possible reason will be checked and India is rightly concerned," said Naresh Chandra, a former envoy to Washington.
A nuclear-armed Myanmar, which lies between Asia's two nuclear powers India and China, poses a major proliferation risk in the region, particularly among its Southeast Asian neighbors, who have proclaimed the region a nuclear weapons-free zone.
SECRET NUCLEAR PLANT
The Sydney Morning Herald reported recently that North Korea is helping Myanmar build a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant in a drive to build an atomic bomb by 2014.
The "secret plant" is supposedly hidden inside a mountain at Naung Laing in northern Myanmar and runs parallel to a research reactor that Russia has agreed to help build at another site, the Herald said, citing evidence from defectors.
The research reactor, groundbreaking for which is scheduled in January, has not yet come under the inspection regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The agency asked the former Burma two years ago to host an IAEA team, following initial reports of its reactor deal with Russia, one knowledgeable official said, but the junta has yet to respond.
One of the defectors in the Herald's report, a former army officer, told Australian National University professor Desmond Ball that he was trained in a 1,000-man "nuclear battalion" and Myanmar had provided yellowcake uranium to North Korea and Iran.
The defectors also said North Korean had helped build tunnels that could be used to hide secret nuclear facilities. Some analysts believe, however, that the junta, which has expressed fears of a U.S. attack, could be building tunnels as elaborate air raid shelters.
Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar now at Australian National University, says he is skeptical about the Herald report, noting defectors are notoriously unreliable.
"I wasn't entirely convinced the evidence they were citing was pointing to a nuclear weapons program. It could have been a nuclear power program," he told Reuters.
"There's plenty of evidence of a military relationship and also a suggestion over a long period that the Burmese army is interested in acquiring missiles from a country like North Korea, but not necessarily a nuclear-armed missile."
Myanmar broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983 after North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the visiting South Korean prime minister, but ties were restored in 2007.
Wilson said that while Myanmar has known reserves of uranium, no evidence had emerged it has been refining it into "yellowcake or anything else for that matter".
He said it was possible Myanmar was bartering uranium ore for conventional weapons, maybe even missile parts or technology.
NORTH KOREA MARKETING
Days before Clinton spoke in Thailand, a U.S. destroyer tailed a North Korean cargo ship, the Kang Nam I, believed to be taking small arms to Myanmar, forcing it eventually to turn around and go home.
Weapons exports are a key source of revenue for North Korea's ramshackle economy. Its May nuclear test may have been as much a marketing ploy to pique the interest of potential rogue buyers as a move in its geopolitical chess game.
In 2007, Israeli jets destroyed a nuclear reactor the North Koreans had helped to build. Iran has used North Korean technology in some of its missiles, and analysts fear Pyongyang could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons.
Some analysts say the threat of a nuclear deterrent may be just what the military regime in impoverished and isolated Myanmar is really after.
Wilson does not buy that.
North Korea actually faces a nuclear threat from the United States in North Asia. Myanmar does not.
"Why would the Burmese army want to acquire nuclear weapons for national security? It would actually make them a target. It wouldn't help them with any threats they face, which are all of a conventional nature."
*********************************************************
Big quake hits off India's Andamans, no tsunami
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:14am EDT
By Sanjit Kumar Roy
PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) - A major earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands early on Tuesday, but a tsunami alert for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh was later canceled.
There were no reports of a tsunami or of any casualties from the tremor, officials said. It coincided with a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that jolted Tokyo and surrounding areas of Japan. There were no reports of major casualties from that quake either.
"We all ran out as fast as possible and have not gone back inside, fearing another quake. Everything was shaking, we are all very, very scared," Subhasis Paul, who runs a provision store in Diglipur island in North Andaman, told Reuters by telephone.
"People are calling each other out of their homes and everyone is huddled together outside," Paul said from Diglipur, about 300 km (185 miles) north of Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The small chain of islands lie hundreds of miles east of India in the Indian Ocean.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.7, struck at 1:55 a.m. (3:55 p.m. EDT on Monday). It was relatively shallow, at a depth of 33 km (20.6 miles), and was centered 260 km (160 miles) north of Port Blair.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there could be a destructive wave along coasts up to 1,000 km (600 miles) from the epicenter, but it later withdrew its warning.
Officials at the tsunami alert center in southern India said there was no chance of a tsunami.
"Our analysis of the sea-level gauges and follow-up showed there was no tsunami potential," said Sateesh Shenoy, director of the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services.
A 7.6 magnitude quake is classified by the USGS as a major earthquake and is capable of widespread, heavy damage.
A massive quake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 caused a tsunami that killed some 228,000 people, the majority in the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
WOKEN BY A JOLT
"I was on the balcony, and it felt very strange for a while, like my chair was leaning to one side," said Reuters correspondent Martin Petty in Bangkok. "So I got out of there sharpish. Aftershocks went on for a good few minutes."
In Indonesia, a meteorology agency official said his agency was monitoring Aceh, but there had been no reports of a tsunami.
"I was waken up by the jolt," said Kyaw Min, a resident of Yangon in Myanmar.
In the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, officials said there was no news of any immediate loss of life or damage.
"We have patrol parties everywhere possible and everything appears normal. We are asking people not to panic and return to their homes," P. Karunakaran, a police superintendent in charge of the North and Middle Andaman region said by telephone from Mayabandar, 270 km (165 miles) north of Port Blair.
Tue Aug 11, 2009 5:14am EDT
By Sanjit Kumar Roy
PORT BLAIR, India (Reuters) - A major earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck in the Indian Ocean off India's Andaman Islands early on Tuesday, but a tsunami alert for India, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand and Bangladesh was later canceled.
There were no reports of a tsunami or of any casualties from the tremor, officials said. It coincided with a 6.5 magnitude earthquake that jolted Tokyo and surrounding areas of Japan. There were no reports of major casualties from that quake either.
"We all ran out as fast as possible and have not gone back inside, fearing another quake. Everything was shaking, we are all very, very scared," Subhasis Paul, who runs a provision store in Diglipur island in North Andaman, told Reuters by telephone.
"People are calling each other out of their homes and everyone is huddled together outside," Paul said from Diglipur, about 300 km (185 miles) north of Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The small chain of islands lie hundreds of miles east of India in the Indian Ocean.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake, initially reported as a magnitude 7.7, struck at 1:55 a.m. (3:55 p.m. EDT on Monday). It was relatively shallow, at a depth of 33 km (20.6 miles), and was centered 260 km (160 miles) north of Port Blair.
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said there could be a destructive wave along coasts up to 1,000 km (600 miles) from the epicenter, but it later withdrew its warning.
Officials at the tsunami alert center in southern India said there was no chance of a tsunami.
"Our analysis of the sea-level gauges and follow-up showed there was no tsunami potential," said Sateesh Shenoy, director of the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services.
A 7.6 magnitude quake is classified by the USGS as a major earthquake and is capable of widespread, heavy damage.
A massive quake in the Indian Ocean in 2004 caused a tsunami that killed some 228,000 people, the majority in the Indonesian province of Aceh on the northern tip of Sumatra island.
WOKEN BY A JOLT
"I was on the balcony, and it felt very strange for a while, like my chair was leaning to one side," said Reuters correspondent Martin Petty in Bangkok. "So I got out of there sharpish. Aftershocks went on for a good few minutes."
In Indonesia, a meteorology agency official said his agency was monitoring Aceh, but there had been no reports of a tsunami.
"I was waken up by the jolt," said Kyaw Min, a resident of Yangon in Myanmar.
In the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, officials said there was no news of any immediate loss of life or damage.
"We have patrol parties everywhere possible and everything appears normal. We are asking people not to panic and return to their homes," P. Karunakaran, a police superintendent in charge of the North and Middle Andaman region said by telephone from Mayabandar, 270 km (165 miles) north of Port Blair.
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Exiled Myanmar groups seek constitution compromise
Thu Aug 13, 2009 9:42am EDT
By Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Exiled Myanmar pro-democracy groups said Thursday they were seeking to break the political deadlock in the country by proposing an amended version of a widely condemned constitution drafted by the ruling junta.
Western governments have criticized a 2010 election set out under the junta's constitution as a sham aimed at entrenching rule by the military, which refused to recognize the last poll in 1990, won by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
The consensus on an amended constitution came at a meeting in the Indonesian capital Jakarta that included representatives of the NLD and members of a government-in-exile made up of 34 members of parliament from various parties elected in 1990.
"We are putting our foot in the shoe of the military regime. Because their constitution is on the table we will look at it rather than selling our own idea," said Bo Hla-Tint, a member of the NLD and foreign minister of the government-in-exile.
"We are trying to be practical. We are not just talking about our own vision anymore," he said.
The new proposal calls for parts of the 2008 constitution to be dropped, including a clause allowing the military to control 25 percent of the seats in every state legislature, and for the powers of the armed forces chief to be curtailed.
Khin Ohmar, a member of the coalition behind the proposal, called on the international community to use the document as a basis to negotiate with the junta, which has previously appeared impervious to most pressures including sanctions.
"We need the U.N., we need ASEAN to use this document to talk to the regime," Ohmar said, referring to the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations. Sein Win, prime minister of the government-in-exile and a first cousin of Suu Kyi, told Reuters by telephone that his Party for National Democracy (PND) would not contest next year's multi-party elections under current circumstances.
"As it is, we in the PND have no faith in the 2010 election and we want the international community to reject it too," he said. "The NLD has to decide by itself if it will join but I know they have many reservations because of the constitution."
A court in Myanmar Tuesday sentenced Suu Kyi to 18 months in detention for breaching terms of her house arrest and breaking a security law after an American swam to her lakeside home in May and stayed uninvited for two days.
The verdict, which drew condemnation from leaders around the world, will keep Suu Kyi off the political stage ahead of the elections.
Thu Aug 13, 2009 9:42am EDT
By Sunanda Creagh
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Exiled Myanmar pro-democracy groups said Thursday they were seeking to break the political deadlock in the country by proposing an amended version of a widely condemned constitution drafted by the ruling junta.
Western governments have criticized a 2010 election set out under the junta's constitution as a sham aimed at entrenching rule by the military, which refused to recognize the last poll in 1990, won by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD).
The consensus on an amended constitution came at a meeting in the Indonesian capital Jakarta that included representatives of the NLD and members of a government-in-exile made up of 34 members of parliament from various parties elected in 1990.
"We are putting our foot in the shoe of the military regime. Because their constitution is on the table we will look at it rather than selling our own idea," said Bo Hla-Tint, a member of the NLD and foreign minister of the government-in-exile.
"We are trying to be practical. We are not just talking about our own vision anymore," he said.
The new proposal calls for parts of the 2008 constitution to be dropped, including a clause allowing the military to control 25 percent of the seats in every state legislature, and for the powers of the armed forces chief to be curtailed.
Khin Ohmar, a member of the coalition behind the proposal, called on the international community to use the document as a basis to negotiate with the junta, which has previously appeared impervious to most pressures including sanctions.
"We need the U.N., we need ASEAN to use this document to talk to the regime," Ohmar said, referring to the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations. Sein Win, prime minister of the government-in-exile and a first cousin of Suu Kyi, told Reuters by telephone that his Party for National Democracy (PND) would not contest next year's multi-party elections under current circumstances.
"As it is, we in the PND have no faith in the 2010 election and we want the international community to reject it too," he said. "The NLD has to decide by itself if it will join but I know they have many reservations because of the constitution."
A court in Myanmar Tuesday sentenced Suu Kyi to 18 months in detention for breaching terms of her house arrest and breaking a security law after an American swam to her lakeside home in May and stayed uninvited for two days.
The verdict, which drew condemnation from leaders around the world, will keep Suu Kyi off the political stage ahead of the elections.
*********************************************************
China urges world to respect Myanmar's sovereignty
Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:12pm EDT
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - China urged the world on Wednesday to respect Myanmar's judicial sovereignty, suggesting Beijing would not back any U.N. action against the junta for returning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into detention.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said it was time for dialogue with Myanmar, not criticism, as outraged Western nations pressed for a U.N. statement denouncing the sentence imposed on the Nobel Peace laureate on Tuesday.
"This not only accords with Myanmar's interests, it is also beneficial to regional stability," she said in a statement. "International society should fully respect Myanmar's judicial sovereignty."
China is one of the few nations that stands by the military government, which has been condemned internationally since it sentenced Suu Kyi, 64, to three years detention for violating an internal security law.
The junta, which has ruled the country with an iron fist for almost five decades, said immediately it would halve the sentence and allow her to serve it at her Yangon home.
Analysts said the move may have been an attempt to appease China, India, Thailand and others whose trade has propped up a state crippled by international sanctions. The European Union said it was preparing further sanctions.
At the United Nations, major powers haggled on Wednesday over the text of a statement on the sentence. "We've made some further progress," British Ambassador John Sawers, current Security Council president, told reporters after meeting fellow envoys from the United States, France, Russia and China.
"We've still got some more work to do. We believe we're moving in the right direction."
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Myanmar, on Wednesday expressed "deep disappointment" about Suu Kyi's sentence. It followed similar statements by member nations that stopped short of criticizing the regime.
ASEAN maintains a policy of quiet diplomacy and non-interference in the internal affairs of its members, but the junta's refusal to improve its human rights record has been the main source of tension within the 10-member bloc.
TIGHT SECURITY
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party condemned the ruling because it was based on a law from Myanmar's 1974 constitution, which is no longer in use.
"Passing such judgment is not in accordance with the law. It is, moreover, tantamount to violating human rights. We therefore condemn it in the strongest terms," the NLD said in a statement.
Lawyer Nyan Win said Suu Kyi had told him after the court verdict to explore "all legal avenues" to secure her release. He said the appeals process could take time.
Security was tight near Suu Kyi's home on Wednesday. Nyan Win said he had not received an answer to his request to visit her.
Critics have dismissed Suu Kyi's trial as a ploy by the junta to keep her off the campaign trail ahead of next year's multi-party elections, the first since 1990, when the NLD's landslide win was ignored by the generals.
The charges stemmed from American intruder John Yettaw's two-day uninvited stay at Suu Kyi's lakeside home in May, which the judge said breached the terms of her house arrest.
Yettaw, who told the court that God sent him to warn Suu Kyi she would be assassinated, was sentenced to seven years' hard labor in a parallel trial on three charges, including immigration offenses and "swimming in a non-swimming area."
Many people in Myanmar are disappointed that Suu Kyi was again being detained though there is general relief that she was allowed to serve her time at home rather than in one of the country's brutal prisons.
"Frankly, I just don't know whether to be happy or angry about it," said Myint, a Yangon-based accountant.
Veteran politician Thakhin Chan Tun, 88, said the verdict was "very unfair and inappropriate" and aimed only at keeping the opposition leader from involvement in the elections.
A commentary carried in three of Myanmar's state-controlled newspapers on Wednesday said the decision to detain Suu Kyi should be accepted to allow the country to move forward.
Myanmar's military has been impervious to international criticism and reluctant to engage with the West.
The generals insist next year's elections will be free and fair and will pave the way for a civilian government. Critics dismiss the polls as an attempt to legitimize army rule.
Wed Aug 12, 2009 3:12pm EDT
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - China urged the world on Wednesday to respect Myanmar's judicial sovereignty, suggesting Beijing would not back any U.N. action against the junta for returning opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi into detention.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said it was time for dialogue with Myanmar, not criticism, as outraged Western nations pressed for a U.N. statement denouncing the sentence imposed on the Nobel Peace laureate on Tuesday.
"This not only accords with Myanmar's interests, it is also beneficial to regional stability," she said in a statement. "International society should fully respect Myanmar's judicial sovereignty."
China is one of the few nations that stands by the military government, which has been condemned internationally since it sentenced Suu Kyi, 64, to three years detention for violating an internal security law.
The junta, which has ruled the country with an iron fist for almost five decades, said immediately it would halve the sentence and allow her to serve it at her Yangon home.
Analysts said the move may have been an attempt to appease China, India, Thailand and others whose trade has propped up a state crippled by international sanctions. The European Union said it was preparing further sanctions.
At the United Nations, major powers haggled on Wednesday over the text of a statement on the sentence. "We've made some further progress," British Ambassador John Sawers, current Security Council president, told reporters after meeting fellow envoys from the United States, France, Russia and China.
"We've still got some more work to do. We believe we're moving in the right direction."
The Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which includes Myanmar, on Wednesday expressed "deep disappointment" about Suu Kyi's sentence. It followed similar statements by member nations that stopped short of criticizing the regime.
ASEAN maintains a policy of quiet diplomacy and non-interference in the internal affairs of its members, but the junta's refusal to improve its human rights record has been the main source of tension within the 10-member bloc.
TIGHT SECURITY
Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party condemned the ruling because it was based on a law from Myanmar's 1974 constitution, which is no longer in use.
"Passing such judgment is not in accordance with the law. It is, moreover, tantamount to violating human rights. We therefore condemn it in the strongest terms," the NLD said in a statement.
Lawyer Nyan Win said Suu Kyi had told him after the court verdict to explore "all legal avenues" to secure her release. He said the appeals process could take time.
Security was tight near Suu Kyi's home on Wednesday. Nyan Win said he had not received an answer to his request to visit her.
Critics have dismissed Suu Kyi's trial as a ploy by the junta to keep her off the campaign trail ahead of next year's multi-party elections, the first since 1990, when the NLD's landslide win was ignored by the generals.
The charges stemmed from American intruder John Yettaw's two-day uninvited stay at Suu Kyi's lakeside home in May, which the judge said breached the terms of her house arrest.
Yettaw, who told the court that God sent him to warn Suu Kyi she would be assassinated, was sentenced to seven years' hard labor in a parallel trial on three charges, including immigration offenses and "swimming in a non-swimming area."
Many people in Myanmar are disappointed that Suu Kyi was again being detained though there is general relief that she was allowed to serve her time at home rather than in one of the country's brutal prisons.
"Frankly, I just don't know whether to be happy or angry about it," said Myint, a Yangon-based accountant.
Veteran politician Thakhin Chan Tun, 88, said the verdict was "very unfair and inappropriate" and aimed only at keeping the opposition leader from involvement in the elections.
A commentary carried in three of Myanmar's state-controlled newspapers on Wednesday said the decision to detain Suu Kyi should be accepted to allow the country to move forward.
Myanmar's military has been impervious to international criticism and reluctant to engage with the West.
The generals insist next year's elections will be free and fair and will pave the way for a civilian government. Critics dismiss the polls as an attempt to legitimize army rule.
*********************************************************
After Suu Kyi verdict, should the West engage Myanmar?
Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:35am EDT
By Nopporn Wong-Anan - Analysis
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Myanmar's reduced sentence for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be an indication the junta is becoming more sensitive to international pressure as it prepares a transition to civilian rule next year, analysts say.
A Myanmar court on Tuesday sentenced Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, to three years in jail -- which the junta then immediately reduced to 18 months of house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon.
The West reacted in outrage, with the European Union preparing a fresh round of sanctions, while China and Myanmar's other neighbors took a more measured response.
The trial came at a time when Western capitals were questioning their strategy toward the generals, given their ineffectiveness in trying to ostracize them or Asia's attempts at engagement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Jakarta in February, expressed frustration at the failure of both approaches. "Imposing sanctions has not influenced the junta... Reaching out and trying to engage has not influenced them either."
Myanmar is a resource-rich country that lies strategically between China and India. The 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, worries that isolating Myanmar will merely shove it into China's orbit.
"Such sanctions don't seem to have much effect on Myanmar because it is a resource-rich country" where Asian neighbors compete for everything from timber to oil and gas, said Antonio Rappa, political analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Singapore is among the top three biggest trading partners and investors in Myanmar, whose ruling generals are believed to park their money and send their children to study in the island-state.
Analysts saw other signs of the junta beginning to become more engaged with the world, such as its acceptance of international aid -- and foreign aid workers -- to help rebuild after a cyclone hit the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, killing 140,000 people.
"What Myanmar needs is more international contact rather than less," said former ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino, adding the junta had shown a "degree of openness" to the international community in the wake of the cyclone that made 2.4 million people destitute.
KANGAROO TRIAL
Debbie Stothard of the anti-junta Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma said the repeated delays in handing down the Suu Kyi verdict, and then the commuted sentence, showed the regime could be swayed by international pressure.
"I think what's interesting is we could see that from a fast kangaroo trial, the regime had to delay the trial and impose a lighter sentence because of international pressure," Stothard told Reuters Television.
That would appear to argue for brandishing a stick at the regime, and analysts said it was unlikely the Obama administration would soften its stance following the verdict.
"If anything, the result will be to solidify the American policy toward Burma," said Walter Lohman of the Washington-based think-tank, the Heritage Foundation.
The U.S. Campaign for Burma, which has called for a full U.N. arms embargo on the country as a way to press China to stop its support for the junta, and isolate the regime to get it to talk to the opposition, said it wanted both sanctions and engagement.
"ASEAN has been reaching out to the regime now for 10 years, the U.N. has sent envoys on some 40 trips -- but clearly engagement without sticks is not working," Campaign's Jeremy Woodrum said.
The junta's move to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest was clearly aimed at keeping her sidelined until the end of next year's planned election. Her ability to mobilize thousands of people for rallies helped her party win 392 of the 485 seats in the 1990 election that was annulled by the military.
The junta is on the final stage of its road map to democracy, culminating in next year's vote, and with a constitution that enshrines a powerful role for the military.
The junta might have become more responsive to international pressure because it may want its new cabinet -- an ostensibly elected civilian one but likely filled with retired generals -- to be acceptable to the outside world, analysts said.
Instead of calling for an election with Suu Kyi's participation, the international community should shift its focus to deal with a post-election Myanmar, they said.
"From now until the elections, Aung San Suu Kyi won't be in the picture," said Pavin Chatchavalpongpun of the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore. "Why don't we sit down and try to think of policies of the next government?
"Than Shwe may be thinking about leaving his legacy behind," Pavin said referring to the junta supremo. "Whether he already has a political successor in his mind, we don't know. But I am sure he has been thinking about that."
Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:35am EDT
By Nopporn Wong-Anan - Analysis
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Myanmar's reduced sentence for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi may be an indication the junta is becoming more sensitive to international pressure as it prepares a transition to civilian rule next year, analysts say.
A Myanmar court on Tuesday sentenced Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, to three years in jail -- which the junta then immediately reduced to 18 months of house arrest at her lakeside home in Yangon.
The West reacted in outrage, with the European Union preparing a fresh round of sanctions, while China and Myanmar's other neighbors took a more measured response.
The trial came at a time when Western capitals were questioning their strategy toward the generals, given their ineffectiveness in trying to ostracize them or Asia's attempts at engagement.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on a visit to Jakarta in February, expressed frustration at the failure of both approaches. "Imposing sanctions has not influenced the junta... Reaching out and trying to engage has not influenced them either."
Myanmar is a resource-rich country that lies strategically between China and India. The 10-nation Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a member, worries that isolating Myanmar will merely shove it into China's orbit.
"Such sanctions don't seem to have much effect on Myanmar because it is a resource-rich country" where Asian neighbors compete for everything from timber to oil and gas, said Antonio Rappa, political analyst at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Singapore is among the top three biggest trading partners and investors in Myanmar, whose ruling generals are believed to park their money and send their children to study in the island-state.
Analysts saw other signs of the junta beginning to become more engaged with the world, such as its acceptance of international aid -- and foreign aid workers -- to help rebuild after a cyclone hit the Irrawaddy Delta in May 2008, killing 140,000 people.
"What Myanmar needs is more international contact rather than less," said former ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino, adding the junta had shown a "degree of openness" to the international community in the wake of the cyclone that made 2.4 million people destitute.
KANGAROO TRIAL
Debbie Stothard of the anti-junta Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma said the repeated delays in handing down the Suu Kyi verdict, and then the commuted sentence, showed the regime could be swayed by international pressure.
"I think what's interesting is we could see that from a fast kangaroo trial, the regime had to delay the trial and impose a lighter sentence because of international pressure," Stothard told Reuters Television.
That would appear to argue for brandishing a stick at the regime, and analysts said it was unlikely the Obama administration would soften its stance following the verdict.
"If anything, the result will be to solidify the American policy toward Burma," said Walter Lohman of the Washington-based think-tank, the Heritage Foundation.
The U.S. Campaign for Burma, which has called for a full U.N. arms embargo on the country as a way to press China to stop its support for the junta, and isolate the regime to get it to talk to the opposition, said it wanted both sanctions and engagement.
"ASEAN has been reaching out to the regime now for 10 years, the U.N. has sent envoys on some 40 trips -- but clearly engagement without sticks is not working," Campaign's Jeremy Woodrum said.
The junta's move to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest was clearly aimed at keeping her sidelined until the end of next year's planned election. Her ability to mobilize thousands of people for rallies helped her party win 392 of the 485 seats in the 1990 election that was annulled by the military.
The junta is on the final stage of its road map to democracy, culminating in next year's vote, and with a constitution that enshrines a powerful role for the military.
The junta might have become more responsive to international pressure because it may want its new cabinet -- an ostensibly elected civilian one but likely filled with retired generals -- to be acceptable to the outside world, analysts said.
Instead of calling for an election with Suu Kyi's participation, the international community should shift its focus to deal with a post-election Myanmar, they said.
"From now until the elections, Aung San Suu Kyi won't be in the picture," said Pavin Chatchavalpongpun of the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore. "Why don't we sit down and try to think of policies of the next government?
"Than Shwe may be thinking about leaving his legacy behind," Pavin said referring to the junta supremo. "Whether he already has a political successor in his mind, we don't know. But I am sure he has been thinking about that."
*********************************************************
Independent Online - Tutu condemns 'illegal' Suu Kyi trial
August 11 2009 at 07:30PM
Archbishop Desmond Tutu condemned the decision Tuesday to return democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest in Myanmar, saying her trial was illegal and must not be accepted.
In a statement issued in London, the Nobel laureate said the decision by the ruling military junta to commute Aung San Suu Kyi's sentence of hard labour to 18 months under house arrest was "a manipulation of an illegal process".
"This decision is wrong. We must not allow the government of Burma (Myanmar) to convince the world that they are making concessions in relation to Aung San Suu Kyi by returning her to house arrest instead of prison," Tutu said.
"This is not a concession - it is a manipulation of an illegal process. It must not be accepted by any government, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the EU or the UN."
Suu Kyi was found guilty by a court Tuesday for breaching the terms of her house arrest, after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May.
August 11 2009 at 07:30PM
Archbishop Desmond Tutu condemned the decision Tuesday to return democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi to house arrest in Myanmar, saying her trial was illegal and must not be accepted.
In a statement issued in London, the Nobel laureate said the decision by the ruling military junta to commute Aung San Suu Kyi's sentence of hard labour to 18 months under house arrest was "a manipulation of an illegal process".
"This decision is wrong. We must not allow the government of Burma (Myanmar) to convince the world that they are making concessions in relation to Aung San Suu Kyi by returning her to house arrest instead of prison," Tutu said.
"This is not a concession - it is a manipulation of an illegal process. It must not be accepted by any government, ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the EU or the UN."
Suu Kyi was found guilty by a court Tuesday for breaching the terms of her house arrest, after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May.
*********************************************************
Press association - Martin hits out at jailing
(UKPA) – 35 minutes ago
Foreign Minister Micheal Martin claims Burma's ruling military junta had defied the international community by again jailing pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate was sentenced to 18-months after a court martial found her guilty of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American into her home.
Mr Martin said: "I will continue to speak out within the EU and the UN and in my contacts with the countries of the region for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for the goals of justice, democracy, reconciliation and prosperity for the people of Burma."
(UKPA) – 35 minutes ago
Foreign Minister Micheal Martin claims Burma's ruling military junta had defied the international community by again jailing pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
The 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate was sentenced to 18-months after a court martial found her guilty of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American into her home.
Mr Martin said: "I will continue to speak out within the EU and the UN and in my contacts with the countries of the region for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and for the goals of justice, democracy, reconciliation and prosperity for the people of Burma."
*********************************************************
CNN News - Condemnation over Suu Kyi sentence
updated 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- The White House criticized the sentencing of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 18 more months of house arrest Tuesday, joining a chorus of condemnation from figures ranging from the Dalai Lama to the U.N. secretary-general.
"This is not somebody that should be tried and not somebody certainly that should have been convicted," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, adding that President Barack Obama was likely to make a statement later.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "saddened and angry at the verdict... following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi."
"The U.N. Security Council -- whose will has been flouted -- must also now respond resolutely and impose a world wide ban on the sale of arms to the regime," he said, calling the verdict a "purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime's planned elections next year."
A military court found Suu Kyi guilty earlier on Tuesday of violating the terms of her house arrest.
The court initially sentenced Suu Kyi to three years in prison, but the head of the country's ruling junta commuted it to a year and a half of house arrest.
"We continue to call for her release from continuing house arrest," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on a diplomatic trip to Africa.
"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including the American John Yettaw," who swam, uninvited, across a lake to Suu Kyi's residence earlier this year, prompting the charge she had violated her house arrest.
The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were among a group of Nobel laureates who also condemned the verdict.
They demanded that the U.N. Security Council investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by the military junta that rules the country, which is also called Burma.
"This illegal verdict is just one more instance of the junta's contempt for justice, security and democracy for the Burmese people," said Nobel Laureate Jody Williams.
The United Nations issued a statement saying U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "strongly deplores this decision" and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Suu Kyi and "all other political prisoners."
In many ways, the court's decision is a continuation of Suu Kyi's current punishment.
The 64-year-old has spent 14 of the past 20 years in one form of confinement or another -- most recently under house arrest.
Yettaw, who Suu Kyi said she did not know, was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. He was convicted of violating immigration laws, municipal laws and the house arrest terms.
Suu Kyi's supporters said the trial was meant to keep her confined so she cannot participate in next year's general elections.
An exact date for the elections has not been set. It is, therefore, unclear whether the Tuesday ruling to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest will prevent her from campaigning.
The Myanmar government claims it was considering releasing Suu Kyi at the end of her latest home confinement term -- and that it had no choice but to try her after she met with Yettaw.
The 1991 Nobel laureate has been the face of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement for decades.
She was put under house arrest in 1989. The following year, her National League for Democracy party won more than 80 percent of the legislative seats in the first free elections in the country in nearly 30 years.
But the military junta disqualified Suu Kyi from serving because of her house arrest, refused to step down and annulled the results.
updated 1 hour, 22 minutes ago
YANGON, Myanmar (CNN) -- The White House criticized the sentencing of Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 18 more months of house arrest Tuesday, joining a chorus of condemnation from figures ranging from the Dalai Lama to the U.N. secretary-general.
"This is not somebody that should be tried and not somebody certainly that should have been convicted," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, adding that President Barack Obama was likely to make a statement later.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was "saddened and angry at the verdict... following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi."
"The U.N. Security Council -- whose will has been flouted -- must also now respond resolutely and impose a world wide ban on the sale of arms to the regime," he said, calling the verdict a "purely political sentence designed to prevent her from taking part in the regime's planned elections next year."
A military court found Suu Kyi guilty earlier on Tuesday of violating the terms of her house arrest.
The court initially sentenced Suu Kyi to three years in prison, but the head of the country's ruling junta commuted it to a year and a half of house arrest.
"We continue to call for her release from continuing house arrest," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on a diplomatic trip to Africa.
"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including the American John Yettaw," who swam, uninvited, across a lake to Suu Kyi's residence earlier this year, prompting the charge she had violated her house arrest.
The Dalai Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev were among a group of Nobel laureates who also condemned the verdict.
They demanded that the U.N. Security Council investigate "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by the military junta that rules the country, which is also called Burma.
"This illegal verdict is just one more instance of the junta's contempt for justice, security and democracy for the Burmese people," said Nobel Laureate Jody Williams.
The United Nations issued a statement saying U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "strongly deplores this decision" and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Suu Kyi and "all other political prisoners."
In many ways, the court's decision is a continuation of Suu Kyi's current punishment.
The 64-year-old has spent 14 of the past 20 years in one form of confinement or another -- most recently under house arrest.
Yettaw, who Suu Kyi said she did not know, was sentenced to seven years of hard labor. He was convicted of violating immigration laws, municipal laws and the house arrest terms.
Suu Kyi's supporters said the trial was meant to keep her confined so she cannot participate in next year's general elections.
An exact date for the elections has not been set. It is, therefore, unclear whether the Tuesday ruling to extend Suu Kyi's house arrest will prevent her from campaigning.
The Myanmar government claims it was considering releasing Suu Kyi at the end of her latest home confinement term -- and that it had no choice but to try her after she met with Yettaw.
The 1991 Nobel laureate has been the face of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement for decades.
She was put under house arrest in 1989. The following year, her National League for Democracy party won more than 80 percent of the legislative seats in the first free elections in the country in nearly 30 years.
But the military junta disqualified Suu Kyi from serving because of her house arrest, refused to step down and annulled the results.
*********************************************************
New York Times - Myanmar Sentence Draws International Criticism
By ALAN COWELL and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: August 11, 2009
PARIS — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined a chorus of predominantly Western voices condemning the sentencing of Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, on Tuesday, demanding her release and saying that, without a change in its human rights practices, Myanmar’s scheduled elections next year would be illegitimate.
“She should not have been tried, and she should not have been convicted,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Goma, Congo, where she is on an African tour. “We continue to call for her release.”
“We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including the American, John Yettaw,” she said, referring to a 53-year-old man who swam across a lake in central Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, last May and spent two nights in Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s villa. The episode led to the case against her on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest.
Mrs. Clinton said: “We are concerned about the harsh punishment. The Burmese junta should immediately end its repression.” She added that Myanmar’s leaders needed to start a dialogue with the political opposition and address human rights obligations, “otherwise the elections they have scheduled for next year will have absolutely no legitimacy.”
Mrs. Clinton spoke after European governments demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, threatening stricter sanctions against the military regime there to restrict arms supplies and curb its trade with the outside world.
In a statement, the 27-nation European Union said it was ready to impose “targeted measures against those responsible for the verdict” and to stiffen some earlier measures, including an arms export ban, visa restrictions and financial sanctions.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, called on the junta to “immediately and unconditionally release” Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and “to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation.”
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace prize in 1991. Fourteen other winners responded to the sentencing on Tuesday with a letter calling on the Security Council to investigate the junta for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In many parts of the world, her trial has been followed closely and her cause has been embraced by a broad range of politicians and human rights advocates.
“Citizens across the globe are asking world leaders to hold this brutal regime to account,” said Ricken Patel, director of an online campaign network called Avaaz.org. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention today on spurious charges removes any shred of legitimacy.”
Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement in London that, while the Myanmar authorities “will hope that a sentence that is shorter than the maximum will be seen by the international community as an act of leniency”, it “must not be seen as such.”
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi “should never have been arrested in the first place. The only issue here is her immediate and unconditional release,” Ms. Khan said.
It was not immediately clear how Myanmar’s Asian neighbors would react. Asian nations generally react cautiously to events in Myanmar, though they do sometimes offer critical comments. Analysts said that, in this instance, they may be willing to accept Myanmar’s protestations of leniency.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, however, called the sentencing “brutal and unjust” and said European sanctions should focus on profitable industries including timber and ruby mining. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said in a statement the European Union should impose new sanctions aimed at the Myanmar leadership “and sparing the civilian population, which we should continue to protect and assist.”
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “saddened and angry” at her sentencing and said it was designed by the ruling military leaders of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to keep her out of elections next year.
In a statement, he said: “It is further proof that the military regime in Burma is determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law in defiance of international opinion.”
Calling on the Security Council to impose a global prohibition on arms sales, he added: “The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance.” France also called for an arms embargo.
The Obama administration has been reviewing American policy toward Myanmar since February, when Secretary of State Clinton declared that the existing sanctions against its military-run government had been ineffective.
At a meeting of the Association of South East Asian nations in Thailand last month, Mrs. Clinton spoke in unusually detailed terms in discussing the country’s human rights record and its treatment of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.
“We are deeply concerned by the reports of continuing human rights abuses within Burma,” she said at the time, “and particularly by actions that are attributed to the Burmese military, concerning the mistreatment and abuse of young girls.”
She also dismissed the charges against Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi as “baseless and totally unacceptable” and said an improvement of ties with Washington depended on the Myanmar junta’s handling of human rights issues.
“Our position is that we are willing to have a more productive partnership with Burma if they take steps that are self-evident,” she said.
By ALAN COWELL and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: August 11, 2009
PARIS — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined a chorus of predominantly Western voices condemning the sentencing of Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, on Tuesday, demanding her release and saying that, without a change in its human rights practices, Myanmar’s scheduled elections next year would be illegitimate.
“She should not have been tried, and she should not have been convicted,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Goma, Congo, where she is on an African tour. “We continue to call for her release.”
“We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners, including the American, John Yettaw,” she said, referring to a 53-year-old man who swam across a lake in central Yangon, Myanmar’s main city, last May and spent two nights in Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s villa. The episode led to the case against her on charges of violating the terms of her house arrest.
Mrs. Clinton said: “We are concerned about the harsh punishment. The Burmese junta should immediately end its repression.” She added that Myanmar’s leaders needed to start a dialogue with the political opposition and address human rights obligations, “otherwise the elections they have scheduled for next year will have absolutely no legitimacy.”
Mrs. Clinton spoke after European governments demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, threatening stricter sanctions against the military regime there to restrict arms supplies and curb its trade with the outside world.
In a statement, the 27-nation European Union said it was ready to impose “targeted measures against those responsible for the verdict” and to stiffen some earlier measures, including an arms export ban, visa restrictions and financial sanctions.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, called on the junta to “immediately and unconditionally release” Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi and “to engage with her without delay as an essential partner in the process of national dialogue and reconciliation.”
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace prize in 1991. Fourteen other winners responded to the sentencing on Tuesday with a letter calling on the Security Council to investigate the junta for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In many parts of the world, her trial has been followed closely and her cause has been embraced by a broad range of politicians and human rights advocates.
“Citizens across the globe are asking world leaders to hold this brutal regime to account,” said Ricken Patel, director of an online campaign network called Avaaz.org. “Aung San Suu Kyi’s detention today on spurious charges removes any shred of legitimacy.”
Irene Khan, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement in London that, while the Myanmar authorities “will hope that a sentence that is shorter than the maximum will be seen by the international community as an act of leniency”, it “must not be seen as such.”
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi “should never have been arrested in the first place. The only issue here is her immediate and unconditional release,” Ms. Khan said.
It was not immediately clear how Myanmar’s Asian neighbors would react. Asian nations generally react cautiously to events in Myanmar, though they do sometimes offer critical comments. Analysts said that, in this instance, they may be willing to accept Myanmar’s protestations of leniency.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, however, called the sentencing “brutal and unjust” and said European sanctions should focus on profitable industries including timber and ruby mining. The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, said in a statement the European Union should impose new sanctions aimed at the Myanmar leadership “and sparing the civilian population, which we should continue to protect and assist.”
In Britain, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “saddened and angry” at her sentencing and said it was designed by the ruling military leaders of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, to keep her out of elections next year.
In a statement, he said: “It is further proof that the military regime in Burma is determined to act with total disregard for accepted standards of the rule of law in defiance of international opinion.”
Calling on the Security Council to impose a global prohibition on arms sales, he added: “The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance.” France also called for an arms embargo.
The Obama administration has been reviewing American policy toward Myanmar since February, when Secretary of State Clinton declared that the existing sanctions against its military-run government had been ineffective.
At a meeting of the Association of South East Asian nations in Thailand last month, Mrs. Clinton spoke in unusually detailed terms in discussing the country’s human rights record and its treatment of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.
“We are deeply concerned by the reports of continuing human rights abuses within Burma,” she said at the time, “and particularly by actions that are attributed to the Burmese military, concerning the mistreatment and abuse of young girls.”
She also dismissed the charges against Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi as “baseless and totally unacceptable” and said an improvement of ties with Washington depended on the Myanmar junta’s handling of human rights issues.
“Our position is that we are willing to have a more productive partnership with Burma if they take steps that are self-evident,” she said.
*********************************************************
The Christian Science Monitor - How to free Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi
As Obama reviews US policy toward the Burmese regime, he must look to the country's Buddhists.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board
from the August 11, 2009 edition
In at least two of Asia's battlegrounds for democracy, it is sometimes women who often have their ear to the ground more than men; that have been pivotal political players.
In the Philippines, the passing of Corazon Aquino this month reminded the world of how much "people power" was key to ousting a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, in 1986. Her rallying of common folk in pacifist protests sent a ricocheting message to the world that inspired uprisings from South Korea to the Soviet bloc.
A second reminder of an Asian woman rallying the masses came Tuesday with a harsh verdict against Burma's democracy champion, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner now faces a further 18 months in detention for harboring an uninvited American in her house. Her mere presence as a voice of the people for freedom keeps the ruling generals on the defensive. Ever since her role in a popular uprising in 1988 – driven in part by the model set by Aquino – she and her millions of followers have been thwarted in seeking democracy.
The verdict against Ms. Suu Kyi has set off a renewed debate in the West about how to influence Burma (also known as Myanmar). The court decision may speed up the Obama administration's review of past US policy, which includes stiff economic sanctions on the country.
Such sanctions have allowed China a large opening to dominate Burma and its economy, providing wealth to the regime in Rangoon even as common Burmese suffer. Some in Congress want President Obama to now "engage" the generals as a way to counter China's sway over its Southeast Asian neighbor. Others prefer to harden the isolation of the country.
Much of this debate ignores the fact that it is the Burmese people who need to muster the will to overthrow their corrupt rulers – as the Filipinos did in 1986. Other countries can assist that process up to a point. And it's not clear when that tipping point might come. If anything, the West must be patient while also supportive of "the people."
Suu Kyi's appeal lies in part from her backing by Buddhist monks. They are an everyday presence in Burmese life. And in ancient days, it was often the leading Buddhist clergy, based on their close reading of the people's will, who decided whether a king should stay or fall. A ruler's legitimacy rested on the views of Buddhist believers, who revere monks for their compassion and pacifism, symbolized by their daily walks door to door with begging bowls asking for alms – mainly from the women in a home.
Just as China suppresses the views of the Dalai Lama in Buddhist Tibet, the regime in Burma has suppressed the monkhood, along with Suu Kyi.
Yet it is the spiritual desires of the Burmese that can empower monks to act and to demand that Suu Kyi be released and that democracy be allowed.
If the West wants to save Burma, it must look for ways to "engage" the monks. Out of the monks' humility and compassion – feminine qualities, even in the political arena – the people will rally someday to help free their real leader from the shackles of a long-overdue detention.
As Obama reviews US policy toward the Burmese regime, he must look to the country's Buddhists.
By the Monitor's Editorial Board
from the August 11, 2009 edition
In at least two of Asia's battlegrounds for democracy, it is sometimes women who often have their ear to the ground more than men; that have been pivotal political players.
In the Philippines, the passing of Corazon Aquino this month reminded the world of how much "people power" was key to ousting a dictator, Ferdinand Marcos, in 1986. Her rallying of common folk in pacifist protests sent a ricocheting message to the world that inspired uprisings from South Korea to the Soviet bloc.
A second reminder of an Asian woman rallying the masses came Tuesday with a harsh verdict against Burma's democracy champion, Aung San Suu Kyi. The Nobel Peace Prize winner now faces a further 18 months in detention for harboring an uninvited American in her house. Her mere presence as a voice of the people for freedom keeps the ruling generals on the defensive. Ever since her role in a popular uprising in 1988 – driven in part by the model set by Aquino – she and her millions of followers have been thwarted in seeking democracy.
The verdict against Ms. Suu Kyi has set off a renewed debate in the West about how to influence Burma (also known as Myanmar). The court decision may speed up the Obama administration's review of past US policy, which includes stiff economic sanctions on the country.
Such sanctions have allowed China a large opening to dominate Burma and its economy, providing wealth to the regime in Rangoon even as common Burmese suffer. Some in Congress want President Obama to now "engage" the generals as a way to counter China's sway over its Southeast Asian neighbor. Others prefer to harden the isolation of the country.
Much of this debate ignores the fact that it is the Burmese people who need to muster the will to overthrow their corrupt rulers – as the Filipinos did in 1986. Other countries can assist that process up to a point. And it's not clear when that tipping point might come. If anything, the West must be patient while also supportive of "the people."
Suu Kyi's appeal lies in part from her backing by Buddhist monks. They are an everyday presence in Burmese life. And in ancient days, it was often the leading Buddhist clergy, based on their close reading of the people's will, who decided whether a king should stay or fall. A ruler's legitimacy rested on the views of Buddhist believers, who revere monks for their compassion and pacifism, symbolized by their daily walks door to door with begging bowls asking for alms – mainly from the women in a home.
Just as China suppresses the views of the Dalai Lama in Buddhist Tibet, the regime in Burma has suppressed the monkhood, along with Suu Kyi.
Yet it is the spiritual desires of the Burmese that can empower monks to act and to demand that Suu Kyi be released and that democracy be allowed.
If the West wants to save Burma, it must look for ways to "engage" the monks. Out of the monks' humility and compassion – feminine qualities, even in the political arena – the people will rally someday to help free their real leader from the shackles of a long-overdue detention.
*********************************************************
Washington Post - Verdict Reveals Burmese Regime Unbowed by Pressure
By Tim Johnston
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 11, 2009; 11:14 AM
BANGKOK, Aug. 11 -- The decision by the generals who run Burma to extend Aung San Suu Kyi's incarceration by 18 months has abruptly snuffed out the dim hope that the regime was becoming more sensitive to international pressure for democratic reform.
The verdict was widely expected: Governments and international rights organizations came out with prepared condemnations minutes after the verdict was announced.
But it has illustrated the West's inability to change the direction of the Burmese government and the paucity of its arsenal when it comes to punishing repressive regimes.
In a short closing statement at her trial, Suu Kyi said that such a verdict would condemn the authorities as much as her and her companions.
"The court will pronounce on the innocence or guilt of a few individuals. The verdict itself will constitute a judgment on the whole of the law, justice and constitutionalism in our country," she said.
Before Suu Kyi's arrest, there was growing international support for the ideas that isolating the regime with sanctions had failed to persuade the generals to improve democratic freedom or human rights and that some form of diplomatic and commercial reengagement might be more effective.
However, Tuesday's verdict appeared likely to give new ammunition to the highly vocal international pro-sanctions lobby, making it harder for governments to explore a more nuanced approach.
The international community also is likely to find it difficult to toughen its stance.
"If you look at economic sanctions, our leverage is minimal. There is nothing exciting in our back pocket," said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Analysts say Burma's ruling junta was determined to use the case to keep Suu Kyi -- still the generals' most formidable opponent despite having spent 14 of the past 19 years
under house arrest -- out of circulation ahead of elections scheduled for next year, even though the constitution written by the regime guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the new parliament.
"She is not being imprisoned because an American swam to her home but because she is viewed as a strong threat to the legitimacy of this regime and its plans for next year's elections," said Jared Genser, a lawyer who represents Suu Kyi overseas.
Suu Kyi's supporters in her National League for Democracy say that although her freedom would be vital for a free and fair ballot, it would not be enough in itself, given the constitutional guarantee of a quarter of parliamentary seats for the military.
The fact that the international community used every measure and threat in its arsenal and still failed to influence the outcome of the trial gives little hope to those who are looking for overseas pressure to help get the constitution amended.
The beginning of the case was bizarre enough. On May 5, the Burmese police arrested John W. Yettaw, a 54-year-old American veteran of the Vietnam War, as he was using homemade flippers and an empty plastic water bottle to swim across the lake that backs onto the dilapidated villa where Suu Kyi has been held.
Yettaw, a native of Falcon, Mo., who relatives say suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his war service, was given a seven-year sentence, including four years hard labor. One of the years of his sentence was for the municipal crime of illegal swimming.
Yettaw told the court that he was returning from warning the Nobel Peace Prize winner that he had had a vision in which she would be killed by terrorists. He had apparently been carrying a Muslim chador so that she could escape in disguise.
Yettaw had tried to visit her before, in November, and succeeded in reaching the house, but she had refused to see him and informed the authorities once he had left.
The fact that he had been given another visa to visit the country spawned conspiracy theories suggesting that the junta had arranged the visit to create a case against her, although Suu Kyi's more sober supporters came to the conclusion that Yettaw was probably too much of a loose cannon for even the Burmese authorities.
Even if the government was not behind the visit, it offered an opportunity to undermine Suu Kyi's status as possibly the world's most famous prisoner of conscience by trying her on criminal charges in courts that have long done the government's bidding.
She was moved to Rangoon's Insein prison pending trial. The international reaction was instant. President Obama called the charges spurious and said she should be released; European powers threatened to widen sanctions against the regime; even China, one of the regime's few allies, signed a regional statement calling on Burma to release political prisoners.
Burmese authorities responded by making sure the case had all the trimmings of due legal process: judges, defense attorneys and a system of appeal when the judges barred some of the defense witnesses.
They even allowed diplomats and the media to attend the trial intermittently.
But there was a surreal quality to the performance, including the fact that the court was trying to ascertain her guilt when she was the victim of a break-in at her compound.
When U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Burma, he was denied permission to see Suu Kyi on the grounds that the government did not want to be seen to be interfering with the judicial process.
The defense argued that because the government originally took Suu Kyi into "protective custody" after a drunken government mob attacked her convoy, it was the guards surrounding the compound who should have been in the dock. The defense told the court that she had neither invited nor welcomed the intrusion, and they pointed out that the law under which she was being charged was part of a constitution that the generals themselves had repealed.
But in the end, for the courts in Rangoon, legalities mattered less than political expediency.
By Tim Johnston
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 11, 2009; 11:14 AM
BANGKOK, Aug. 11 -- The decision by the generals who run Burma to extend Aung San Suu Kyi's incarceration by 18 months has abruptly snuffed out the dim hope that the regime was becoming more sensitive to international pressure for democratic reform.
The verdict was widely expected: Governments and international rights organizations came out with prepared condemnations minutes after the verdict was announced.
But it has illustrated the West's inability to change the direction of the Burmese government and the paucity of its arsenal when it comes to punishing repressive regimes.
In a short closing statement at her trial, Suu Kyi said that such a verdict would condemn the authorities as much as her and her companions.
"The court will pronounce on the innocence or guilt of a few individuals. The verdict itself will constitute a judgment on the whole of the law, justice and constitutionalism in our country," she said.
Before Suu Kyi's arrest, there was growing international support for the ideas that isolating the regime with sanctions had failed to persuade the generals to improve democratic freedom or human rights and that some form of diplomatic and commercial reengagement might be more effective.
However, Tuesday's verdict appeared likely to give new ammunition to the highly vocal international pro-sanctions lobby, making it harder for governments to explore a more nuanced approach.
The international community also is likely to find it difficult to toughen its stance.
"If you look at economic sanctions, our leverage is minimal. There is nothing exciting in our back pocket," said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Analysts say Burma's ruling junta was determined to use the case to keep Suu Kyi -- still the generals' most formidable opponent despite having spent 14 of the past 19 years
under house arrest -- out of circulation ahead of elections scheduled for next year, even though the constitution written by the regime guarantees the military 25 percent of the seats in the new parliament.
"She is not being imprisoned because an American swam to her home but because she is viewed as a strong threat to the legitimacy of this regime and its plans for next year's elections," said Jared Genser, a lawyer who represents Suu Kyi overseas.
Suu Kyi's supporters in her National League for Democracy say that although her freedom would be vital for a free and fair ballot, it would not be enough in itself, given the constitutional guarantee of a quarter of parliamentary seats for the military.
The fact that the international community used every measure and threat in its arsenal and still failed to influence the outcome of the trial gives little hope to those who are looking for overseas pressure to help get the constitution amended.
The beginning of the case was bizarre enough. On May 5, the Burmese police arrested John W. Yettaw, a 54-year-old American veteran of the Vietnam War, as he was using homemade flippers and an empty plastic water bottle to swim across the lake that backs onto the dilapidated villa where Suu Kyi has been held.
Yettaw, a native of Falcon, Mo., who relatives say suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from his war service, was given a seven-year sentence, including four years hard labor. One of the years of his sentence was for the municipal crime of illegal swimming.
Yettaw told the court that he was returning from warning the Nobel Peace Prize winner that he had had a vision in which she would be killed by terrorists. He had apparently been carrying a Muslim chador so that she could escape in disguise.
Yettaw had tried to visit her before, in November, and succeeded in reaching the house, but she had refused to see him and informed the authorities once he had left.
The fact that he had been given another visa to visit the country spawned conspiracy theories suggesting that the junta had arranged the visit to create a case against her, although Suu Kyi's more sober supporters came to the conclusion that Yettaw was probably too much of a loose cannon for even the Burmese authorities.
Even if the government was not behind the visit, it offered an opportunity to undermine Suu Kyi's status as possibly the world's most famous prisoner of conscience by trying her on criminal charges in courts that have long done the government's bidding.
She was moved to Rangoon's Insein prison pending trial. The international reaction was instant. President Obama called the charges spurious and said she should be released; European powers threatened to widen sanctions against the regime; even China, one of the regime's few allies, signed a regional statement calling on Burma to release political prisoners.
Burmese authorities responded by making sure the case had all the trimmings of due legal process: judges, defense attorneys and a system of appeal when the judges barred some of the defense witnesses.
They even allowed diplomats and the media to attend the trial intermittently.
But there was a surreal quality to the performance, including the fact that the court was trying to ascertain her guilt when she was the victim of a break-in at her compound.
When U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon visited Burma, he was denied permission to see Suu Kyi on the grounds that the government did not want to be seen to be interfering with the judicial process.
The defense argued that because the government originally took Suu Kyi into "protective custody" after a drunken government mob attacked her convoy, it was the guards surrounding the compound who should have been in the dock. The defense told the court that she had neither invited nor welcomed the intrusion, and they pointed out that the law under which she was being charged was part of a constitution that the generals themselves had repealed.
But in the end, for the courts in Rangoon, legalities mattered less than political expediency.
*********************************************************
Newsweek - Judicial Terror
The conviction of Burma's opposition leader doesn't show clemency or compromise; it's a sign of the regime's desperation.
By Melinda Liu | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 11, 2009
Some people are saying that Aung San Suu Kyi's verdict today—18 months of house arrest, commuted down from three years of hard labor—is a sign that Burma's junta leader Than Shwe really is beginning to show more flexibility. They're wrong. The junta is subjecting the opposition leader's freedom to "death by a thousand cuts," the notorious Chinese torture technique that prolonged prisoners' lives but only temporarily, and at a ghastly price.
The generals who rule Burma are trying to take a page from Beijing's playbook, hoping that the world—and their own citizens—will tolerate continuing government repression as they do in China, which happens to be a key ally of the Burmese generals. But the junta has forgotten one important thing. The grand bargain that has prevailed between the Chinese government and its people goes like this: Beijing promises to keep delivering better and better living standards to its citizens, who in turn accept its benign autocracy and refrain from toppling the government. Though that Chinese deal has come under strain at times, it has survived better than expected for more than three decades.
Problem is, Burma's junta has presided over a steady deterioration in the country's economy, which used to be the world's largest exporter back in British colonial times. (Burma became an independent country in 1948; for more than 100 years before that, it was mostly ruled as part of the British Raj.) Since the Burmese military grabbed power in 1962, ending a period of democratic government, the country has been wracked by civil unrest, a languishing economy, natural disasters, and simmering insurgencies. Per capita GDP is about $1,200, slightly better than Rwanda, and the most violent incidents of antigovernment unrest have been rooted in economic grievances.
In August 1988, the regime brutally crushed student-led demonstrations that erupted after authorities (apparently on numerologists' advice) abruptly demonetized many
currency notes. Another bout of civil unrest was ignited in September 2007 by drastic fuel-price hikes. The only thing truly flourishing today is the military itself, which now eats up 40 percent of the national budget. It has doubled in size since Suu Kyi's electoral victory was stolen 19 years ago.
The grand bargain that prevails in China does not, and cannot, work in today's Burma. But Than Shwe's junta keeps trying to replicate its techniques. Today was the last chance for the strongman to make a genuine bid for the legitimacy that has so obsessed the country's ruling generals. The charismatic opposition leader Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 19 years under house arrest, is widely seen to have been charged with violating the terms of her detention as an excuse for the junta to continue detaining her.
She was due to be freed when a traveling American, John Yettaw, swam across a Rangoon lake in May to warn her of assassins whom he'd glimpsed in a vision. She allowed him to stay at her residence for two nights—and for the "crime" of hosting this uninvited visitor, Suu Kyi's detention was prolonged. (Yettaw was sentenced to seven years, including four years' hard labor, for violating immigration law and for illegal swimming.)
Suu Kyi's sentence pretty much ensures the junta will not be seriously challenged in next year's parliamentary elections—but also that Than Shwe has lost Burma for good. Had she been freed, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party would almost certainly not be able to duplicate its resounding electoral victory in the last election 19 years ago. Her followers have been harassed, intimidated, and co-opted to such a degree in the intervening years that it's a shadow of the political organization it had once been.
Even so, the junta was still too insecure to allow elections that might bestow legitimacy upon the winner. It's a sign Than Shwe knows his government is unlawful.
The magnanimity he tried to show is a tactic often seen in Chinese political trails. The court initially sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor, then called a five-minute recess. At that point, a commutation order from the general himself was read aloud in the courtroom. But this was not compromise; it was desperation. Now, the 2010 parliamentary vote that the junta is taking such pains to prepare for will be seen as a sham. That means it will be up to Suu Kyi or a younger opposition leadership—or maybe a more pragmatic set of generals—to give the Burmese a government they can believe in again.
The conviction of Burma's opposition leader doesn't show clemency or compromise; it's a sign of the regime's desperation.
By Melinda Liu | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Aug 11, 2009
Some people are saying that Aung San Suu Kyi's verdict today—18 months of house arrest, commuted down from three years of hard labor—is a sign that Burma's junta leader Than Shwe really is beginning to show more flexibility. They're wrong. The junta is subjecting the opposition leader's freedom to "death by a thousand cuts," the notorious Chinese torture technique that prolonged prisoners' lives but only temporarily, and at a ghastly price.
The generals who rule Burma are trying to take a page from Beijing's playbook, hoping that the world—and their own citizens—will tolerate continuing government repression as they do in China, which happens to be a key ally of the Burmese generals. But the junta has forgotten one important thing. The grand bargain that has prevailed between the Chinese government and its people goes like this: Beijing promises to keep delivering better and better living standards to its citizens, who in turn accept its benign autocracy and refrain from toppling the government. Though that Chinese deal has come under strain at times, it has survived better than expected for more than three decades.
Problem is, Burma's junta has presided over a steady deterioration in the country's economy, which used to be the world's largest exporter back in British colonial times. (Burma became an independent country in 1948; for more than 100 years before that, it was mostly ruled as part of the British Raj.) Since the Burmese military grabbed power in 1962, ending a period of democratic government, the country has been wracked by civil unrest, a languishing economy, natural disasters, and simmering insurgencies. Per capita GDP is about $1,200, slightly better than Rwanda, and the most violent incidents of antigovernment unrest have been rooted in economic grievances.
In August 1988, the regime brutally crushed student-led demonstrations that erupted after authorities (apparently on numerologists' advice) abruptly demonetized many
currency notes. Another bout of civil unrest was ignited in September 2007 by drastic fuel-price hikes. The only thing truly flourishing today is the military itself, which now eats up 40 percent of the national budget. It has doubled in size since Suu Kyi's electoral victory was stolen 19 years ago.
The grand bargain that prevails in China does not, and cannot, work in today's Burma. But Than Shwe's junta keeps trying to replicate its techniques. Today was the last chance for the strongman to make a genuine bid for the legitimacy that has so obsessed the country's ruling generals. The charismatic opposition leader Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 19 years under house arrest, is widely seen to have been charged with violating the terms of her detention as an excuse for the junta to continue detaining her.
She was due to be freed when a traveling American, John Yettaw, swam across a Rangoon lake in May to warn her of assassins whom he'd glimpsed in a vision. She allowed him to stay at her residence for two nights—and for the "crime" of hosting this uninvited visitor, Suu Kyi's detention was prolonged. (Yettaw was sentenced to seven years, including four years' hard labor, for violating immigration law and for illegal swimming.)
Suu Kyi's sentence pretty much ensures the junta will not be seriously challenged in next year's parliamentary elections—but also that Than Shwe has lost Burma for good. Had she been freed, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party would almost certainly not be able to duplicate its resounding electoral victory in the last election 19 years ago. Her followers have been harassed, intimidated, and co-opted to such a degree in the intervening years that it's a shadow of the political organization it had once been.
Even so, the junta was still too insecure to allow elections that might bestow legitimacy upon the winner. It's a sign Than Shwe knows his government is unlawful.
The magnanimity he tried to show is a tactic often seen in Chinese political trails. The court initially sentenced Suu Kyi to three years of hard labor, then called a five-minute recess. At that point, a commutation order from the general himself was read aloud in the courtroom. But this was not compromise; it was desperation. Now, the 2010 parliamentary vote that the junta is taking such pains to prepare for will be seen as a sham. That means it will be up to Suu Kyi or a younger opposition leadership—or maybe a more pragmatic set of generals—to give the Burmese a government they can believe in again.
*********************************************************
updated at 19:46 GMT, Tuesday, 11 August 2009 20:46 UK
BBC News - Brown and UN chief discuss Burma
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have called Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction in Burma "profoundly disappointing".
The pair spoke by telephone after the pro-democracy leader was sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest for violating security laws.
She has already spent 14 of the past 20 years under this form of detention.
Next year's elections in Burma "would not be credible" without her inclusion, a Downing Street spokesman said.
Mr Brown and Mr Ban also agreed "on the need for further discussion and action in the United Nations", the spokesman added.
And the UK would be pressing for an arms embargo against Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi was on trial for letting an American man, John Yettaw, into her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited.
Critics of Burma's military regime claimed the verdict was designed to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking part in elections scheduled for 2010.
For the Conservatives, the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, described the verdict as "an entirely politically-motivated move".
It was intended "to suppress democracy and shut off this courageous woman and leader from her people, and confirms that the election scheduled for next year would be no more than a sham", he said.
While the Tories backed the European Union's decision to impose financial sanctions on Burma, "a complete ban on arms sales" to that country was needed, Mr Hague said.
"We also call on the EU to support a commission of inquiry to establish if the Burmese generals are guilty of committing crimes against humanity and if they should ultimately face trial by the International Criminal Court."
'Total disregard'
Earlier the prime minister - who devoted a chapter of his book Courage to Ms Suu Kyi - branded her trial a "sham".
And Mr Brown accused Burma of acting with "total disregard" for the rule of law and international opinion.
Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis said Ms Suu Kyi, 64, had reacted with "characteristic stoicism, dignity and courage" to her sentence.
"She walked across to international diplomats and she said: 'I look forward to working with you for the future peace and prosperity of my country and the world.'
"This is a remarkable woman, not just a political leader, and, of course, she speaks for 2,100 political prisoners that this regime has put in prison unlawfully."
Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won Burma's last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
BBC News - Brown and UN chief discuss Burma
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon have called Aung San Suu Kyi's conviction in Burma "profoundly disappointing".
The pair spoke by telephone after the pro-democracy leader was sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest for violating security laws.
She has already spent 14 of the past 20 years under this form of detention.
Next year's elections in Burma "would not be credible" without her inclusion, a Downing Street spokesman said.
Mr Brown and Mr Ban also agreed "on the need for further discussion and action in the United Nations", the spokesman added.
And the UK would be pressing for an arms embargo against Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi was on trial for letting an American man, John Yettaw, into her lakeside home after he swam there uninvited.
Critics of Burma's military regime claimed the verdict was designed to prevent Ms Suu Kyi from taking part in elections scheduled for 2010.
For the Conservatives, the shadow foreign secretary, William Hague, described the verdict as "an entirely politically-motivated move".
It was intended "to suppress democracy and shut off this courageous woman and leader from her people, and confirms that the election scheduled for next year would be no more than a sham", he said.
While the Tories backed the European Union's decision to impose financial sanctions on Burma, "a complete ban on arms sales" to that country was needed, Mr Hague said.
"We also call on the EU to support a commission of inquiry to establish if the Burmese generals are guilty of committing crimes against humanity and if they should ultimately face trial by the International Criminal Court."
'Total disregard'
Earlier the prime minister - who devoted a chapter of his book Courage to Ms Suu Kyi - branded her trial a "sham".
And Mr Brown accused Burma of acting with "total disregard" for the rule of law and international opinion.
Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis said Ms Suu Kyi, 64, had reacted with "characteristic stoicism, dignity and courage" to her sentence.
"She walked across to international diplomats and she said: 'I look forward to working with you for the future peace and prosperity of my country and the world.'
"This is a remarkable woman, not just a political leader, and, of course, she speaks for 2,100 political prisoners that this regime has put in prison unlawfully."
Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won Burma's last elections in 1990 but was never allowed to take power.
*********************************************************
Monsters and Critics - Vietnamese boat rescues Myanmar fishermen from sea after fight
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 11, 2009, 4:40 GMT
Hanoi - A Vietnamese fishing boat has rescued two Myanmar fishermen in the Gulf of Thailand who ended up in the sea after a fight on their vessel, officials said Tuesday.
'A Vietnamese fishing boat rescued them while they were floating in the sea and delivered them to us,' said Colonel Nguyen Van Thuong, a border guard official in the central Vietnamese province of Binh Thuan.
The men, in their early 20s, were rescued on August 3, and stayed on the Vietnamese boat until it docked in Binh Thuan on Monday.
The Myanmar pair told border guards they had been working on a Thai fishing boat when they got into a fight with Thai crew members, who pushed one of them overboard. The second Myanmar man grabbed a lifebelt and jumped into the water to escape.
Thuong said he could not verify the accuracy of the men's account, but was working on returning them to Myanmar.
On Tuesday, the official Viet Nam News reported a Vietnamese cargo ship with a crew of ten was rescued by Chinese coastguards off the island of Hainan.
China's maritime rescue centre said the Vietnamese cargo ship Hoang Phuong 02 encountered difficulties while sheltering from a storm at the Hainan port of Basuo early Saturday.
China informed the Vietnamese embassy in Beijing that the crew were safe.
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 11, 2009, 4:40 GMT
Hanoi - A Vietnamese fishing boat has rescued two Myanmar fishermen in the Gulf of Thailand who ended up in the sea after a fight on their vessel, officials said Tuesday.
'A Vietnamese fishing boat rescued them while they were floating in the sea and delivered them to us,' said Colonel Nguyen Van Thuong, a border guard official in the central Vietnamese province of Binh Thuan.
The men, in their early 20s, were rescued on August 3, and stayed on the Vietnamese boat until it docked in Binh Thuan on Monday.
The Myanmar pair told border guards they had been working on a Thai fishing boat when they got into a fight with Thai crew members, who pushed one of them overboard. The second Myanmar man grabbed a lifebelt and jumped into the water to escape.
Thuong said he could not verify the accuracy of the men's account, but was working on returning them to Myanmar.
On Tuesday, the official Viet Nam News reported a Vietnamese cargo ship with a crew of ten was rescued by Chinese coastguards off the island of Hainan.
China's maritime rescue centre said the Vietnamese cargo ship Hoang Phuong 02 encountered difficulties while sheltering from a storm at the Hainan port of Basuo early Saturday.
China informed the Vietnamese embassy in Beijing that the crew were safe.
*********************************************************
Sarkozy asks EU to tighten sanctions on Myanmar
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-12 02:00:42
PARIS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday asked the European Union to tighten sanctions on Myanmar, denouncing the sentencing of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was "brutal and unjust," the president's office said in a statement.
"The president is asking the European Union to respond quickly by adopting new sanctions against the Burmese regime, which must in particular target the resources that they directly profit from,in the wood and ruby sector," said the statement.
"The Burmese authorities have shown with this iniquitous ruling their decision to ignore pressing messages from the international community," Sarkozy said in the statement, adding Suu Kyi was a political victim.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the new sanctions should be imposed on Myanmar for "sparing the civilian population, which we should continue to protest and assist."
Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18-month house arrest on Tuesday.
www.chinaview.cn 2009-08-12 02:00:42
PARIS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday asked the European Union to tighten sanctions on Myanmar, denouncing the sentencing of democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi was "brutal and unjust," the president's office said in a statement.
"The president is asking the European Union to respond quickly by adopting new sanctions against the Burmese regime, which must in particular target the resources that they directly profit from,in the wood and ruby sector," said the statement.
"The Burmese authorities have shown with this iniquitous ruling their decision to ignore pressing messages from the international community," Sarkozy said in the statement, adding Suu Kyi was a political victim.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said the new sanctions should be imposed on Myanmar for "sparing the civilian population, which we should continue to protest and assist."
Suu Kyi was sentenced to 18-month house arrest on Tuesday.
*********************************************************
Sky News - Obama Demands Release Of Aung Sun Suu Kyi
Breaking News
7:47pm UK, Tuesday August 11, 2009
Peter Sharp, Asia correspondent
President Obama has condemned the sentence given to Aung Sun Suu Kyi and joined the international community in calling for her immediate release.
Burmese democracy icon Suu Kyi will be detained for a further 18 months after she was found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest.
Obama said the ruling violates "universal principles of human rights" and "disregard" for UN Security Council statements.
"Today's unjust decision reminds us of thousands of other political prisoners in Burma who...have been denied their liberty because of their pursuit of a government that respects the will, rights and aspirations of all Burmese citizens.
Obama also raised concerns over the sentencing of US citizen John Yettaw, the man who visited Suu Kyi in her home.
Ban Ki-moon earlier deplored the 18-month sentence, saying her case questioned the "credibility of the political process" in Burma.
The UN security council will meet next week to discuss the situation in Burma.
More than 2,000 security personnel surrounded the notorious Insein Prison as the country's military junta sentenced the Nobel peace laureate after a lengthy trial.
The 64-year-old Oxford-educated politician was initially sentenced to three years in prison but that was reduced to a 18 months on the junta's orders.
The leader of the democracy movement in Burma has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
Ms Suu Kyi was arrested in May following a bizarre uninvited visit from eccentric American John Yettaw.
Using homemade flippers, the 53-year-old Vietnam veteran swam across Inya Lake, in the centre of capital Rangoon, to her heavily-secured home.
Yettaw said he had a vision that Ms Suu Kyi would be assassinated by "terrorists" and wanted to warn her.
But his uninvited two-day visit breached her terms of house arrest and gave the junta the perfect opportunity to jail her ahead of general elections next year.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I am both saddened and angry at the verdict following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi.
"So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance."
Yettaw was accused of immigration offences and swimming in a non-swimming area. He was jailed for seven years, including four years with hard labour.
Ms Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest after she led a failed uprising against the military junta in 1988.
Despite her incarceration, she remains a symbol of hope to Burma’s 47 million people.
The trial opened on May 18 and was seen by many as a pretext for the junta to keep Ms Suu Kyi behind bars during the looming polls.
They will be the first elections in more than 20 years and the pro-democracy leader would have played a key opposition role had she been freed.
State newspapers in Burma warned Ms Suu Kyi’s supporters not to cause trouble following the verdict and told the international community not to meddle in Burma’s affairs.
Breaking News
7:47pm UK, Tuesday August 11, 2009
Peter Sharp, Asia correspondent
President Obama has condemned the sentence given to Aung Sun Suu Kyi and joined the international community in calling for her immediate release.
Burmese democracy icon Suu Kyi will be detained for a further 18 months after she was found guilty of violating the terms of her house arrest.
Obama said the ruling violates "universal principles of human rights" and "disregard" for UN Security Council statements.
"Today's unjust decision reminds us of thousands of other political prisoners in Burma who...have been denied their liberty because of their pursuit of a government that respects the will, rights and aspirations of all Burmese citizens.
Obama also raised concerns over the sentencing of US citizen John Yettaw, the man who visited Suu Kyi in her home.
Ban Ki-moon earlier deplored the 18-month sentence, saying her case questioned the "credibility of the political process" in Burma.
The UN security council will meet next week to discuss the situation in Burma.
More than 2,000 security personnel surrounded the notorious Insein Prison as the country's military junta sentenced the Nobel peace laureate after a lengthy trial.
The 64-year-old Oxford-educated politician was initially sentenced to three years in prison but that was reduced to a 18 months on the junta's orders.
The leader of the democracy movement in Burma has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention.
Ms Suu Kyi was arrested in May following a bizarre uninvited visit from eccentric American John Yettaw.
Using homemade flippers, the 53-year-old Vietnam veteran swam across Inya Lake, in the centre of capital Rangoon, to her heavily-secured home.
Yettaw said he had a vision that Ms Suu Kyi would be assassinated by "terrorists" and wanted to warn her.
But his uninvited two-day visit breached her terms of house arrest and gave the junta the perfect opportunity to jail her ahead of general elections next year.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I am both saddened and angry at the verdict following the sham trial of Aung San Suu Kyi.
"So long as Aung San Suu Kyi and all those political opponents imprisoned in Burma remain in detention and are prevented from playing their full part in the political process, the planned elections in 2010 will have no credibility or legitimacy.
"The facade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance."
Yettaw was accused of immigration offences and swimming in a non-swimming area. He was jailed for seven years, including four years with hard labour.
Ms Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest after she led a failed uprising against the military junta in 1988.
Despite her incarceration, she remains a symbol of hope to Burma’s 47 million people.
The trial opened on May 18 and was seen by many as a pretext for the junta to keep Ms Suu Kyi behind bars during the looming polls.
They will be the first elections in more than 20 years and the pro-democracy leader would have played a key opposition role had she been freed.
State newspapers in Burma warned Ms Suu Kyi’s supporters not to cause trouble following the verdict and told the international community not to meddle in Burma’s affairs.
*********************************************************
Global Lawyer / Myanmar
Law.com - DLA Piper Partner Fights On for Myanmar Detainee's Freedom
Priti Patnaik
The American Lawyer
August 13, 2009
DLA Piper's Jared Genser represents a very high-profile client: Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the face of democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
On Tuesday, the Myanmar government convicted Suu Kyi of violating the terms of her house arrest, sparking international outrage and statements from world leaders like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for her release.
Suu Kyi, who won the right to be Burma's prime minister in 1990 but was blocked from assuming office by a military junta, has been confined to her house in Yangon for the past six years. In May, the Myanmar government charged her with violating her house arrest in a bizarre case involving an American man who swam across a lake to her house and spent two nights there. Based on Tuesday's verdict, she was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest.
As local lawyers work for her release through the Myanmar courts, Genser, a partner in DLA Piper's government affairs group in Washington, D.C., has been working the international angles. As president of Freedom Now, a nonprofit dedicated to freeing political prisoners, Genser has filed petitions with the U.N. to generate political pressure and publicity for Suu Kyi's case.
How did you come to represent Aung San Suu Kyi?
In 2005 my law firm was commissioned by former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu to produce a report on Burma for the U.N. Security Council as part of a global effort to get Burma on the council. Shortly after, I was approached by a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's family to represent her. Up to that point they had never had international counsel.
What did you think of Tuesday's ruling?
The verdict was a foregone conclusion. From the outset she was detained because she's a threat to the military rule in her country. The Burmese junta knew her house arrest was going to expire and they wanted an excuse to detain her because they are scheduled to hold elections next year. They needed to exclude her from having any involvement in the 2010 elections.
Why was she under house arrest?
She was taken into custody in May 2003 after government-sponsored thugs tried to assassinate her and about 70 of her supporters were killed. Since then, the junta has held her under the state protection law, which allows a person who is a threat to national security to be held without charges for up to five years.
What were the circumstances surrounding her alleged breach of house arrest?
This American man, John Yettaw, swam to her house. He had done this before, but was turned away. He begged her to stay overnight for medical reasons and she agreed.
She never invited him to her home. She had no idea who he was. He just literally showed up at her door. Ultimately she was charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest, which said she couldn't invite anyone to her home.
What is your involvement in this case?
I am not a Burmese-qualified lawyer so I'm not trying the case domestically. She has three lawyers representing her in Burma and I'm trying to supplement their efforts with international legal work.
How so?
For example, in response to the petition I filed with the U.N., the Burmese junta argued that she was not detained because she was a threat to national security, but for her own safety. There's no provision of Burmese law that allows a person to be detained for her own safety. I gave that response to her lawyers inside the country, who tried to use it in the domestic legal proceedings to argue that even the Burmese junta itself had admitted she wasn't a threat to national security and that they are violating their own law.
What was her defense at the breach of house arrest trial?
The first argument was that she did not breach the terms of her house arrest because she was being held under a law that itself was not valid. The state protection law was authorized under the 1974 Constitution that was annulled in 1988. Even if that law was valid, she was being held for six years -- beyond the five years authorized by the law.
Also, the military junta had exclusive control over security for her home. So it's unreasonable to hold her accountable for the breach of security.
Apparently the court didn't agree.
No. At the end of the day, this is a political trial.
So, what now?
We're going to follow up on the petition we filed with the U.N. to secure a judgment that she is being held illegally and in violation of international law. We will be pushing for the U.N. Security Council to re-engage in the situation in Burma, not merely because of her extended detention but because of the broader threat to international peace and
security posed by the regime in Burma.
Law.com - DLA Piper Partner Fights On for Myanmar Detainee's Freedom
Priti Patnaik
The American Lawyer
August 13, 2009
DLA Piper's Jared Genser represents a very high-profile client: Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and the face of democracy in Myanmar, also known as Burma.
On Tuesday, the Myanmar government convicted Suu Kyi of violating the terms of her house arrest, sparking international outrage and statements from world leaders like British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling for her release.
Suu Kyi, who won the right to be Burma's prime minister in 1990 but was blocked from assuming office by a military junta, has been confined to her house in Yangon for the past six years. In May, the Myanmar government charged her with violating her house arrest in a bizarre case involving an American man who swam across a lake to her house and spent two nights there. Based on Tuesday's verdict, she was sentenced to an additional 18 months of house arrest.
As local lawyers work for her release through the Myanmar courts, Genser, a partner in DLA Piper's government affairs group in Washington, D.C., has been working the international angles. As president of Freedom Now, a nonprofit dedicated to freeing political prisoners, Genser has filed petitions with the U.N. to generate political pressure and publicity for Suu Kyi's case.
How did you come to represent Aung San Suu Kyi?
In 2005 my law firm was commissioned by former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu to produce a report on Burma for the U.N. Security Council as part of a global effort to get Burma on the council. Shortly after, I was approached by a member of Aung San Suu Kyi's family to represent her. Up to that point they had never had international counsel.
What did you think of Tuesday's ruling?
The verdict was a foregone conclusion. From the outset she was detained because she's a threat to the military rule in her country. The Burmese junta knew her house arrest was going to expire and they wanted an excuse to detain her because they are scheduled to hold elections next year. They needed to exclude her from having any involvement in the 2010 elections.
Why was she under house arrest?
She was taken into custody in May 2003 after government-sponsored thugs tried to assassinate her and about 70 of her supporters were killed. Since then, the junta has held her under the state protection law, which allows a person who is a threat to national security to be held without charges for up to five years.
What were the circumstances surrounding her alleged breach of house arrest?
This American man, John Yettaw, swam to her house. He had done this before, but was turned away. He begged her to stay overnight for medical reasons and she agreed.
She never invited him to her home. She had no idea who he was. He just literally showed up at her door. Ultimately she was charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest, which said she couldn't invite anyone to her home.
What is your involvement in this case?
I am not a Burmese-qualified lawyer so I'm not trying the case domestically. She has three lawyers representing her in Burma and I'm trying to supplement their efforts with international legal work.
How so?
For example, in response to the petition I filed with the U.N., the Burmese junta argued that she was not detained because she was a threat to national security, but for her own safety. There's no provision of Burmese law that allows a person to be detained for her own safety. I gave that response to her lawyers inside the country, who tried to use it in the domestic legal proceedings to argue that even the Burmese junta itself had admitted she wasn't a threat to national security and that they are violating their own law.
What was her defense at the breach of house arrest trial?
The first argument was that she did not breach the terms of her house arrest because she was being held under a law that itself was not valid. The state protection law was authorized under the 1974 Constitution that was annulled in 1988. Even if that law was valid, she was being held for six years -- beyond the five years authorized by the law.
Also, the military junta had exclusive control over security for her home. So it's unreasonable to hold her accountable for the breach of security.
Apparently the court didn't agree.
No. At the end of the day, this is a political trial.
So, what now?
We're going to follow up on the petition we filed with the U.N. to secure a judgment that she is being held illegally and in violation of international law. We will be pushing for the U.N. Security Council to re-engage in the situation in Burma, not merely because of her extended detention but because of the broader threat to international peace and
security posed by the regime in Burma.
*********************************************************
SILive - Australia to broadcast Myanmar-language radio
8/12/2009, 4:17 a.m. EDT
The Associated Press
(AP) — CANBERRA, Australia - Australia plans to broadcast a Myanmar-language radio service into the secretive Southeast Asian nation to promote democracy and human rights, the foreign minister said Wednesday.
The military junta that rules Myanmar, also known as Burma, heavily censors the nation's media and limits the population's communications with the outside world.
But foreign radio remains popular among locals, with U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Asia and Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norwegian-supported operation, both listened to.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament on Wednesday that the Myanmar service would become the eighth language broadcast by state-owned Radio Australia, which focuses on Asia and the Pacific.
Smith said the service would "open up a new channel of international contact for the people of Burma."
It would also show Australian solidarity with Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.
"This is a further demonstration that Australia now and for a considerable period of time ... has stood shoulder to shoulder with her and stood shoulder to shoulder for the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights in Burma," Smith said.
A Myanmar court on Tuesday convicted the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home. She was sentenced to 18 months house arrest.
Smith called for Myanmar to release Suu Kyi along with more than 2,000 other political prisoners.
Australia last year imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar's military rulers, their families and associates. Smith said he would consider extending those sanctions to members of the judiciary.
8/12/2009, 4:17 a.m. EDT
The Associated Press
(AP) — CANBERRA, Australia - Australia plans to broadcast a Myanmar-language radio service into the secretive Southeast Asian nation to promote democracy and human rights, the foreign minister said Wednesday.
The military junta that rules Myanmar, also known as Burma, heavily censors the nation's media and limits the population's communications with the outside world.
But foreign radio remains popular among locals, with U.S. Government-funded Radio Free Asia and Democratic Voice of Burma, a Norwegian-supported operation, both listened to.
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Parliament on Wednesday that the Myanmar service would become the eighth language broadcast by state-owned Radio Australia, which focuses on Asia and the Pacific.
Smith said the service would "open up a new channel of international contact for the people of Burma."
It would also show Australian solidarity with Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, he said.
"This is a further demonstration that Australia now and for a considerable period of time ... has stood shoulder to shoulder with her and stood shoulder to shoulder for the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights in Burma," Smith said.
A Myanmar court on Tuesday convicted the 64-year-old Nobel Peace laureate of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home. She was sentenced to 18 months house arrest.
Smith called for Myanmar to release Suu Kyi along with more than 2,000 other political prisoners.
Australia last year imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar's military rulers, their families and associates. Smith said he would consider extending those sanctions to members of the judiciary.
*********************************************************
Monsters and Critics.com
M&C - Thailand as ASEAN chair urges Myanmar to free Aung San Suu Kyi
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 12, 2009, 7:00 GMT
Bangkok - Thailand, the current chair of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), on Wednesday urged Myanmar to immediately free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest to allow her to play a role in next year's general election.
Thailand expressed 'deep disappointment' with the Myanmar junta's decision Tuesday to place Suu Kyi under house arrest for the next 18 months, effectively barring her from participating in the planned polls.
In its capacity as chair of 10-nation ASEAN, the Thai government reiterated calls made at the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum held last month, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners in Myanmar, including Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under detention.
'Such actions will contribute to national reconciliation among the people of Myanmar, meaningful dialogue and facilitate the democratization of Myanmar,' the Thai statement said.
'Only free, fair and inclusive general elections will then pave the way for Myanmar's full integration into the international community,' it added.
Myanmar joined ASEAN in 1997 and has proven a major embarrassment to the association ever since.
The country's military leadership has notched up one of the world's worst human rights records, and its adamant refusal to free Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has inspired near universal outrage and condemnation.
Despite the criticisms, even from its close neighbours, Myanmar's ruling military junta appeared determined to push through with its so-called 'road map to democracy,' which is to include a general election in 2010, albeit one that promises to be neither free nor fair.
A military-drafted constitution pushed through in 2008, also as part of the road map, has guaranteed the military would hold control over any elected government through a quorum of appointed senators.
Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy party, which won the last polls held in 1990 but which has been denied power for the past 19 years. She is seen by the junta as the only political force capable of derailing its road map to 'discipline-flourishing democracy.'
Asia-Pacific News
Aug 12, 2009, 7:00 GMT
Bangkok - Thailand, the current chair of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), on Wednesday urged Myanmar to immediately free Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest to allow her to play a role in next year's general election.
Thailand expressed 'deep disappointment' with the Myanmar junta's decision Tuesday to place Suu Kyi under house arrest for the next 18 months, effectively barring her from participating in the planned polls.
In its capacity as chair of 10-nation ASEAN, the Thai government reiterated calls made at the 16th ASEAN Regional Forum held last month, demanding the immediate release of all political prisoners in Myanmar, including Suu Kyi, who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under detention.
'Such actions will contribute to national reconciliation among the people of Myanmar, meaningful dialogue and facilitate the democratization of Myanmar,' the Thai statement said.
'Only free, fair and inclusive general elections will then pave the way for Myanmar's full integration into the international community,' it added.
Myanmar joined ASEAN in 1997 and has proven a major embarrassment to the association ever since.
The country's military leadership has notched up one of the world's worst human rights records, and its adamant refusal to free Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, has inspired near universal outrage and condemnation.
Despite the criticisms, even from its close neighbours, Myanmar's ruling military junta appeared determined to push through with its so-called 'road map to democracy,' which is to include a general election in 2010, albeit one that promises to be neither free nor fair.
A military-drafted constitution pushed through in 2008, also as part of the road map, has guaranteed the military would hold control over any elected government through a quorum of appointed senators.
Suu Kyi is the leader of the National League for Democracy party, which won the last polls held in 1990 but which has been denied power for the past 19 years. She is seen by the junta as the only political force capable of derailing its road map to 'discipline-flourishing democracy.'
*********************************************************
Bangkok Post - Opinion: The 'benevolence' of General Than Shwe
Writer: KYAW ZWA MOE
Published: 13/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
Around noon on Tuesday, the notorious Insein Prison court sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to three years' imprisonment with hard labour. Hold your anger. Mercy then dropped from above. Her captor, Senior General Than Shwe, interfered with the court's harsh decision by halving her sentence and allowing her to return home.
Thank God. Oh no! Thank Than Shwe.
As soon as the court read the verdict, Home Minister Maj Gen Maung Oo entered the courtroom like the deus ex machina of classical Greek drama and announced that Than Shwe, head of the ruling junta, had ordered the sentence cut to 18 months.
Gen Than Shwe said in his statement, read to the court by the minister, that he had issued the order for four reasons: Mrs Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, Burma's independence hero; in the interests of the country's peace and stability; for the absence of any grudge, and to avoid obstacles on the way towards democracy.
Apart from halving her sentence, said the minister, Gen Than Shwe had ruled that she would serve the 18 months at home, under house arrest. But the merciful gesture didn't stop there. The home minister said Mrs Suu Kyi could expect an amnesty if she complied with the discipline the government would set up during that time.
Under the terms of this new house arrest order, Mrs Suu Kyi can receive visits from her doctor and other guests, watch state-run TV and read approved newspapers.
Two of Mrs Suu Kyi's women companions were also recipients of Gen Than Shwe's benevolence. The two members of Mrs Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, who were also convicted of giving shelter to the American intruder John Yettaw, had their sentences halved. Mr Yettaw wasn't so lucky. He was sentenced to a total of seven years, with four years' hard labour.
Gen Than Shwe's intervention in the trial indicates that he and his regime want to counter international criticism of their treatment of Mrs Suu Kyi by cultivating the image of a constructive and merciful leader, even though their kangaroo court had condemned an innocent person.
Despite her innocence, Mrs Suu Kyi - who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest - is seen by the generals as the most dangerous person on earth, capable of destroying their planned election in 2010.
When she went on trial in May, Mrs Suu Kyi faced a possible prison sentence of five years. The minimum sentence for her "crime" was three years, and most observers expected this would be her punishment.
Basically, the generals wanted to keep Mrs Suu Kyi locked up until after the 2010 election. A sentence of 18 months served their purpose and also imparted an aura of clemency to the court.
The junta had anyway inserted in the constitution approved by a referendum in 2008 a provision excluding Aung San Suu Kyi from the highest public office. Article 59 on Qualifications of the President and Vice President, states: "The President of the Union himself, parents, spouse, children and their spouses shall not owe allegiance to a foreign country, nor be subject of a foreign or citizen of a foreign country."
That article automatically bars Mrs Suu Kyi from any leadership role as she is the widow of a British scholar and mother of two sons who are not Burmese citizens.
However, that is not enough for the generals. Her conviction now on a trumped-up charge actually bars her from participating in the political arena forever.
The constitution's Article 121 states that a person serving a prison term or having been convicted for an offence shall not be entitled to be elected to parliament. That clearly means that Mrs Suu Kyi can never stand for election.
Gen Than Shwe seems to be saying: "Suu Kyi, see you after our election." He could add, however, "But we'll never see each other in the political arena."
Kyaw Zwa Moe is Managing Editor ofThe Irrawaddy Publishing Group.
Writer: KYAW ZWA MOE
Published: 13/08/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News
Around noon on Tuesday, the notorious Insein Prison court sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to three years' imprisonment with hard labour. Hold your anger. Mercy then dropped from above. Her captor, Senior General Than Shwe, interfered with the court's harsh decision by halving her sentence and allowing her to return home.
Thank God. Oh no! Thank Than Shwe.
As soon as the court read the verdict, Home Minister Maj Gen Maung Oo entered the courtroom like the deus ex machina of classical Greek drama and announced that Than Shwe, head of the ruling junta, had ordered the sentence cut to 18 months.
Gen Than Shwe said in his statement, read to the court by the minister, that he had issued the order for four reasons: Mrs Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, Burma's independence hero; in the interests of the country's peace and stability; for the absence of any grudge, and to avoid obstacles on the way towards democracy.
Apart from halving her sentence, said the minister, Gen Than Shwe had ruled that she would serve the 18 months at home, under house arrest. But the merciful gesture didn't stop there. The home minister said Mrs Suu Kyi could expect an amnesty if she complied with the discipline the government would set up during that time.
Under the terms of this new house arrest order, Mrs Suu Kyi can receive visits from her doctor and other guests, watch state-run TV and read approved newspapers.
Two of Mrs Suu Kyi's women companions were also recipients of Gen Than Shwe's benevolence. The two members of Mrs Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, who were also convicted of giving shelter to the American intruder John Yettaw, had their sentences halved. Mr Yettaw wasn't so lucky. He was sentenced to a total of seven years, with four years' hard labour.
Gen Than Shwe's intervention in the trial indicates that he and his regime want to counter international criticism of their treatment of Mrs Suu Kyi by cultivating the image of a constructive and merciful leader, even though their kangaroo court had condemned an innocent person.
Despite her innocence, Mrs Suu Kyi - who has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest - is seen by the generals as the most dangerous person on earth, capable of destroying their planned election in 2010.
When she went on trial in May, Mrs Suu Kyi faced a possible prison sentence of five years. The minimum sentence for her "crime" was three years, and most observers expected this would be her punishment.
Basically, the generals wanted to keep Mrs Suu Kyi locked up until after the 2010 election. A sentence of 18 months served their purpose and also imparted an aura of clemency to the court.
The junta had anyway inserted in the constitution approved by a referendum in 2008 a provision excluding Aung San Suu Kyi from the highest public office. Article 59 on Qualifications of the President and Vice President, states: "The President of the Union himself, parents, spouse, children and their spouses shall not owe allegiance to a foreign country, nor be subject of a foreign or citizen of a foreign country."
That article automatically bars Mrs Suu Kyi from any leadership role as she is the widow of a British scholar and mother of two sons who are not Burmese citizens.
However, that is not enough for the generals. Her conviction now on a trumped-up charge actually bars her from participating in the political arena forever.
The constitution's Article 121 states that a person serving a prison term or having been convicted for an offence shall not be entitled to be elected to parliament. That clearly means that Mrs Suu Kyi can never stand for election.
Gen Than Shwe seems to be saying: "Suu Kyi, see you after our election." He could add, however, "But we'll never see each other in the political arena."
Kyaw Zwa Moe is Managing Editor ofThe Irrawaddy Publishing Group.
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ChannelNews Asia - Myanmar's exiled groups launch new democracy movement
Posted: 13 August 2009 2049 hrs
JAKARTA: Myanmar's exiled leaders and other opposition groups formed a new movement for democracy on Thursday during a meeting in Indonesia.
The so-called Movement for Democracy and Rights of Ethnic Nationalities launched its "Proposal for National Reconciliation" at the end of talks in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The movement is made up of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma plus six pro-democracy groups, but does not include the main National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party.
The NLD is headed by Nobel laureate and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, who won a landslide election victory in 1990 which the junta has never recognised.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 years since then, and was sentenced to another 18 months' confinement on Wednesday in a major blow to her supporters ahead of fresh elections set for next year.
One of the exiled leaders Sein Win, the first cousin of the NLD leader, said reconciliation would fail unless Suu Kyi was released and allowed to resume her political activities.
"We have produced a detailed proposal for a democratic, federal union of Burma and we will continue to work in the interests of all the people of Burma. That is our job," he said, using the old name for the country.
"Without her release and that of all other political prisoners, the process of national reconciliation cannot commence nor can the planned 2010 elections be credible."
The movement's declaration, backed by former and exiled NLD members, concedes the military an "important political role" as a "stakeholder" in the country's transition to democracy.
It also refers to the "sharing of responsibility" among civil society, ethnic groups and the military for the rebuilding of the country, but makes no concrete proposals.
Organisers said the meeting had been curtailed due to restrictions by police after Yangon's embassy complained to the Indonesian government.
Foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia could not allow exiled leaders to meet on its territory.
But several local parliamentarians held talks with the exiled opposition activists in a gesture of solidarity with the democracy movement, Sein Win said.
Indonesia is a founding member of the ten-state Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is criticised for failing to speak out strongly enough against human rights abuses in member-state Myanmar.
Analysts have expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of the new movement and Myanmar's fragmented exiled politics in general.
"The cardinal failure is its inability to connect with the people inside (Myanmar)," London School of Economics researcher Zarni, who goes by one name, told AFP last week.
Posted: 13 August 2009 2049 hrs
JAKARTA: Myanmar's exiled leaders and other opposition groups formed a new movement for democracy on Thursday during a meeting in Indonesia.
The so-called Movement for Democracy and Rights of Ethnic Nationalities launched its "Proposal for National Reconciliation" at the end of talks in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The movement is made up of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma plus six pro-democracy groups, but does not include the main National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party.
The NLD is headed by Nobel laureate and democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, who won a landslide election victory in 1990 which the junta has never recognised.
Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 years since then, and was sentenced to another 18 months' confinement on Wednesday in a major blow to her supporters ahead of fresh elections set for next year.
One of the exiled leaders Sein Win, the first cousin of the NLD leader, said reconciliation would fail unless Suu Kyi was released and allowed to resume her political activities.
"We have produced a detailed proposal for a democratic, federal union of Burma and we will continue to work in the interests of all the people of Burma. That is our job," he said, using the old name for the country.
"Without her release and that of all other political prisoners, the process of national reconciliation cannot commence nor can the planned 2010 elections be credible."
The movement's declaration, backed by former and exiled NLD members, concedes the military an "important political role" as a "stakeholder" in the country's transition to democracy.
It also refers to the "sharing of responsibility" among civil society, ethnic groups and the military for the rebuilding of the country, but makes no concrete proposals.
Organisers said the meeting had been curtailed due to restrictions by police after Yangon's embassy complained to the Indonesian government.
Foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia could not allow exiled leaders to meet on its territory.
But several local parliamentarians held talks with the exiled opposition activists in a gesture of solidarity with the democracy movement, Sein Win said.
Indonesia is a founding member of the ten-state Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which is criticised for failing to speak out strongly enough against human rights abuses in member-state Myanmar.
Analysts have expressed scepticism about the effectiveness of the new movement and Myanmar's fragmented exiled politics in general.
"The cardinal failure is its inability to connect with the people inside (Myanmar)," London School of Economics researcher Zarni, who goes by one name, told AFP last week.
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The Jakarta Post - Let Suu Kyi contest election, Indonesia tells Myanmar
Mustaqim Adamrah , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 08/12/2009 10:46 PM | National
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Wednesday that Myanmar’s election next year would be considered “democratic, inclusive and credible” only if opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) took part.
“As part of Myanmar’s promise of road to democracy, I say Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD should be part of an election process [next year],” Yudhoyono told reporters at the State Palace.
Yudhoyono was responding to Myanmar’s decision to extend the house arrest of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi.
“ASEAN members have signed and ratified a new ASEAN charter. It is very clear that [the charter stipulates that] ASEAN people respect the values and practices of democracy. … We ask Myanmar, along with other ASEAN members, to respect the ASEAN charter, which profoundly focuses on values of democracy," said Yudhoyono.
He said he was asking ASEAN chair and Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to arrange a foreign ministerial meeting to discuss the issue.
On Tuesday, a Myanmar court found Suu Kyi guilty and sentenced her to another 18 months of house arrest for allowing a United States citizen to live in her house.
Mustaqim Adamrah , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Wed, 08/12/2009 10:46 PM | National
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Wednesday that Myanmar’s election next year would be considered “democratic, inclusive and credible” only if opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) took part.
“As part of Myanmar’s promise of road to democracy, I say Aung San Suu Kyi and her NLD should be part of an election process [next year],” Yudhoyono told reporters at the State Palace.
Yudhoyono was responding to Myanmar’s decision to extend the house arrest of Nobel laureate Suu Kyi.
“ASEAN members have signed and ratified a new ASEAN charter. It is very clear that [the charter stipulates that] ASEAN people respect the values and practices of democracy. … We ask Myanmar, along with other ASEAN members, to respect the ASEAN charter, which profoundly focuses on values of democracy," said Yudhoyono.
He said he was asking ASEAN chair and Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to arrange a foreign ministerial meeting to discuss the issue.
On Tuesday, a Myanmar court found Suu Kyi guilty and sentenced her to another 18 months of house arrest for allowing a United States citizen to live in her house.
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The Jakarta Post - Opinion: Shame on you ASEAN
Thu, 08/13/2009 12:06 PM
World leaders and human rights groups could only spew condemnation and anger in the direction of the chief of Myanmar’s junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for his continuous, merciless and brutal treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, the county’s incarcerated democracy leader.
Than Shwe’s latest act of injustice came Tuesday, when he extended the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house arrest by 18 months for allowing an uninvited American to stay in her home for two nights in May. One Myanmarese general rendered the rest of the world’s will irrelevant for no good reason.
Than Shwe and his cadres fully know that no one will ever be able to punish them, not even the world’s most powerful man, US President Barack Obama, because the leaders of the other nine members of ASEAN – Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – are staunch opponents of any efforts to punish Myanmar’s heartless rulers.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the President of the world’s third largest democracy, is a strong believer that persuasion and constructive engagement is the only way to lure Than Shwe into “repenting”. This absurd belief is shared by the leaders of other ASEAN member states.
Shame on ASEAN leaders, especially those of democratic nations, who continue to tolerate the gross human rights abuses being committed in Myanmar. ASEAN leaders often cite fears that Myanmar would fall under the influence of China, or India, as an excuse for their inaction against Myanmar, while at the same time openly admitting the junta and its generals do not deserve any supports because of their unspeakable brutality.
As China and India close their eyes and pretend not to know what is going on in Myanmar, for economic and geopolitical reasons, we say shame on you too.
We urge ASEAN leaders, although we know very well that they have no guts to do it, to suspend Myanmar’s membership to the regional grouping until the nation’s generals surrender power to the country’s supreme rulers: the people.
Morally, who is guiltier: Myanmar’s generals, or those who continue to back them?
Thu, 08/13/2009 12:06 PM
World leaders and human rights groups could only spew condemnation and anger in the direction of the chief of Myanmar’s junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, for his continuous, merciless and brutal treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, the county’s incarcerated democracy leader.
Than Shwe’s latest act of injustice came Tuesday, when he extended the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s house arrest by 18 months for allowing an uninvited American to stay in her home for two nights in May. One Myanmarese general rendered the rest of the world’s will irrelevant for no good reason.
Than Shwe and his cadres fully know that no one will ever be able to punish them, not even the world’s most powerful man, US President Barack Obama, because the leaders of the other nine members of ASEAN – Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia – are staunch opponents of any efforts to punish Myanmar’s heartless rulers.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the President of the world’s third largest democracy, is a strong believer that persuasion and constructive engagement is the only way to lure Than Shwe into “repenting”. This absurd belief is shared by the leaders of other ASEAN member states.
Shame on ASEAN leaders, especially those of democratic nations, who continue to tolerate the gross human rights abuses being committed in Myanmar. ASEAN leaders often cite fears that Myanmar would fall under the influence of China, or India, as an excuse for their inaction against Myanmar, while at the same time openly admitting the junta and its generals do not deserve any supports because of their unspeakable brutality.
As China and India close their eyes and pretend not to know what is going on in Myanmar, for economic and geopolitical reasons, we say shame on you too.
We urge ASEAN leaders, although we know very well that they have no guts to do it, to suspend Myanmar’s membership to the regional grouping until the nation’s generals surrender power to the country’s supreme rulers: the people.
Morally, who is guiltier: Myanmar’s generals, or those who continue to back them?
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StrategyPage - Mutant M-16s In Burma
August 13, 2009: Pictures of Myanmar (Burma) soldiers show them carrying familiar weapons of an unknown, but new, design. Until recently, most Burmese soldiers carried locally manufactured copies of the AK-47 or the German G-3. But over the last six years, these older weapons have been replaced by a new design is that has been variously described as "Chinese" or "Israeli." Closer examination of these weapons indicates that they are apparently illegal copies of Chinese QBZ-95 and Israeli Tavor assault rifles.
Manufacturing machinery was illegally obtained from Singapore (which manufactures a local design similar to the U.S. M-16).
Burmese troops have been seen carrying a large variety of weapons, from World War II era stuff, to very modern items like the QBZ-95 and various variations on the M-16 (like the Israeli Tavor). Some of these weapons were obtained via the arms black market, which Burma has long been a major part of. But other weapons were obtained via government-to-government purchase.
For example, several years ago, it became apparent that China had apparently sold some of its new assault rifles (the Type 95) to Myanmar. Troops in that country have been seen carrying the Chinese weapon. The QBZ-95 (Type 95) is bullpup design (the magazine is behind the trigger) that uses China’s proprietary 5.8x42mm cartridge, which is a little wider than the 5.56 NATO, but shorter in overall length. The Type 95 uses a 30-round magazine, similar to the M-16. The Type 95 fires single shots or bursts. China is still in the process of replacing its own Type 81 (improved AK-47) rifles with the new rifle. The Type 95 is about ten percent lighter than the older rifle, and has apparently been well received by the troops.
The Type 95 was first seen in Hong Kong when China took over in 1997. The Type 95 comes in a variety of styles (a compact version, an automatic rifle, and a sniper rifle). An export version (the Type 97), using the standard 5.56mm NATO round is available, and is apparently what Myanmar is using. But the "new" Burmese military rifle does not appear to be based solely on the Type 95, as it has elements similar to the Singapore version of the M-16 and Israeli Tavor as well. It's a mutant, turned out in a Burmese factory.
August 13, 2009: Pictures of Myanmar (Burma) soldiers show them carrying familiar weapons of an unknown, but new, design. Until recently, most Burmese soldiers carried locally manufactured copies of the AK-47 or the German G-3. But over the last six years, these older weapons have been replaced by a new design is that has been variously described as "Chinese" or "Israeli." Closer examination of these weapons indicates that they are apparently illegal copies of Chinese QBZ-95 and Israeli Tavor assault rifles.
Manufacturing machinery was illegally obtained from Singapore (which manufactures a local design similar to the U.S. M-16).
Burmese troops have been seen carrying a large variety of weapons, from World War II era stuff, to very modern items like the QBZ-95 and various variations on the M-16 (like the Israeli Tavor). Some of these weapons were obtained via the arms black market, which Burma has long been a major part of. But other weapons were obtained via government-to-government purchase.
For example, several years ago, it became apparent that China had apparently sold some of its new assault rifles (the Type 95) to Myanmar. Troops in that country have been seen carrying the Chinese weapon. The QBZ-95 (Type 95) is bullpup design (the magazine is behind the trigger) that uses China’s proprietary 5.8x42mm cartridge, which is a little wider than the 5.56 NATO, but shorter in overall length. The Type 95 uses a 30-round magazine, similar to the M-16. The Type 95 fires single shots or bursts. China is still in the process of replacing its own Type 81 (improved AK-47) rifles with the new rifle. The Type 95 is about ten percent lighter than the older rifle, and has apparently been well received by the troops.
The Type 95 was first seen in Hong Kong when China took over in 1997. The Type 95 comes in a variety of styles (a compact version, an automatic rifle, and a sniper rifle). An export version (the Type 97), using the standard 5.56mm NATO round is available, and is apparently what Myanmar is using. But the "new" Burmese military rifle does not appear to be based solely on the Type 95, as it has elements similar to the Singapore version of the M-16 and Israeli Tavor as well. It's a mutant, turned out in a Burmese factory.
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