Myanmar frees 20 political prisoners; more urged
YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar's reformist government granted amnesties for at least 20 political prisoners, but opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for the release of all of the hundreds more still behind bars.
Zaw Thet Htwe, who monitors prisoner releases for the opposition, said more than 20 of 46 detainees granted amnesties on Tuesday by President Thein Sein were prisoners of conscience.
The office of 88 Generation Students, a group that spearheaded a failed uprising against the military in 1988, put the number slightly higher, saying 24 political prisoners were among them.Freedom for political prisoners is a benchmark used by Western nations critical of Myanmar's former military regime to judge Thein Sein's administration. Previous releases have been a major factor in decisions by those nations to ease economic and political sanctions they placed on the previous government for its poor human rights record and undemocratic rule.
Thein Sein had served with the old regime before his pro-military party won 2010 elections. In office, he began democratic reforms and opened dialogues with ethnic insurgent groups and the pro-democracy movement. Suu Kyi agreed to have her party contest by-elections in April, and she and other colleagues now belong to a small opposition in the military-dominated legislature.
"We will call for the release of all 330 political prisoners," Suu Kyi, the country's most famous former political detainee, said at a news conference Tuesday that was her first appearance since returning from a high-profile European tour over the weekend.
Amnesty International welcomed the releases but called on the government to set other political prisoners free.
"It is shameful that the Myanmar government continues to incarcerate hundreds of its citizens just for exercising their basic rights to freedom of expression and assembly," the rights group said in a statement. "All prisoners of conscience must be released immediately. "
Human Rights Watch says that prior to the latest amnesty, at least 659 political prisoners have been released over the past year. Estimates by human rights groups of the number remaining in custody range from about 200 to about 600. Suu Kyi's party counts 330.The state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper reported that 37 men and nine women were being freed on humanitarian grounds "with a view to ensuring the stability of the state and making eternal peace (and) national reconciliation."
"We are very happy that our fellow political prisoners are being released," Ko Ko Gyi, a prominent former political detainee, told The Associated Press. "However, we will continue to work for the release of all political prisoners."
Suu Kyi received a hero's welcome during her European journey, but Myanmar authorities criticized her for calling her homeland Burma. The election commission, which oversees laws pertaining to political parties, said Suu Kyi should stop using the name and "respect the constitution."
Opposition activists have long referred to the Southeast Asian nation as Burma to protest against the former army junta, which held absolute power and changed the country's English name to Myanmar in 1989.
Suu Kyi retorted Tuesday that the junta had altered the name "without consulting any public opinion." Suu Kyi was under house arrest at the time and said she heard the news over the radio."They shouldn't have done it like that," Suu Kyi said. "All these issues are concerned with the basic principles of democracy ... and as I believe in democratic values, I think I can use whatever term I want."
At her news conference, she called the country Burma when she spoke in English. In the official state language, the country and its people are both pronounced Myanmar.
The former junta, which ceded power last year, justified the name change on the ground that the word Myanmar better reflects the country's ethnic diversity. The term Burma connotes Burman, the dominant ethnic group in the country, to the exclusion of ethnic minorities. But regime opponents and exile groups from a range of ethnicities — as well as foreign governments including the United States — have persisted in calling the country Burma in protest against an undemocratic regime they long saw as illegitimate.
But pressure is increasing on her to address simmering political crises at home, and to move her country's democratic changes forward.
In Geneva, Oslo, Dublin, London and Paris, Suu Kyi issued eloquent pleas for ethical foreign investment in Myanmar and foreign support for her country's ongoing reforms.
"This is the most important time for Burma," she told parliamentarians and dignitaries gathered in London's Westminster Hall.
"This is the moment of our greatest need," she continued. "And so I would ask that our friends both here in Britain and beyond participate in and support Burma's efforts toward the establishment of a truly democratic and just society."
'Reform Program' Still Fragile
Suu Kyi, the first foreign woman and Asian citizen to speak at Westminster in the palace's 900-year history, said that beyond President Thein Sein, it's hard to determine how much support the current efforts in Myanmar enjoy, especially within the country's military. It's an assessment shared by outside observers.
"The entire reform program in Myanmar now hangs by a very slender thread," says Vikram Nehru, a Southeast Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He says Suu Kyi must quickly throw her considerable authority behind Thein Sein's key reform policies.
"Otherwise there's a great danger that the enemies of reform, those that are currently benefiting from the current system, will exert a pushback," he warns, "and that might be to the detriment of the long-term development of the country."
Pressure is increasing for Suu Kyi to make good on her inspiring rhetoric about human rights. There's no starker example than the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, next to Bangladesh.
Mob violence among Burmese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims there has claimed at least 80 lives and created as many as 90,000 refugees in the past month.
Many Rohingya immigrated to largely Buddhist Myanmar from what is now Bangladesh generations ago. But neither Bangladesh's nor Myanmar's government recognizes them as citizens.
When asked in Oslo whether Rohingyas are citizens of Myanmar, Suu Kyi said she did not know.
"When you talk about the Rohingya, we are not quite sure whom you are talking about," she said. "There's some who say those people who claim to be Rohingyas are not the ones who are actually native to Burma but have just come over recently from Bangladesh."
A Sensitive Issue
Suu Kyi echoes popular complaints in Myanmar that the problem is caused in part by corrupt immigration officials along the border, and ineffective law enforcement in Rakhine state. She says that establishing the rule of law is the key to resolving the issue, but she does not suggest what the law should say.
"She finds herself in a very difficult position, because her constituency is known to be extremely anti-Rohingya," says Maung Zarni, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Suu Kyi was elected to represent the remote rural township of Kawhmu, a three-hour drive from the main city of Yangon.
Maung Zarni points out that, when it comes to the subject of the Rohingya, the views of many Burmese pro-democracy activists are just as discriminatory and intolerant as those of the former junta they once fought.
"We must not be ashamed to admit that we have illiberal tendencies and elements within our culture and our practices, and they need to be rectified in accordance with the principles that we espouse or we are fighting for," Maung Zarni says. "You can't have it both ways. Are you for human rights, or are you against human rights?"
Maung Zarni suggests that Suu Kyi emphasize her principles while avoiding the specifics of the citizenship debate. He admits that he, too, opposes recognizing the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic minorities.
Capitalizing On Recent Momentum
Fresh from her election to Parliament on April 1, and at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Suu Kyi now finds herself at an unprecedented level of popularity at home and abroad.
Some supporters point out that Suu Kyi is under considerable pressure not to upset the military into rolling back the changes and revoking her freedoms, and that she is working hard to build an organization that was focused on survival during decades of military suppression. They advise observers to be patient and not judge her too quickly.
But other supporters say Suu Kyi can afford to waste neither time nor opportunities to consolidate and push forward the country's fledgling reforms.
Cheered In Europe, Suu Kyi Faces Crises In Myanmar
WPA Pool/Getty Images Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi smiles as she leaves Westminster Hall after addressing both Houses of Parliament on June 21 in London.
July 3, 2012
There are few opposition leaders who are welcomed abroad with the same pomp and ceremony as heads of state. But that's the sort of star treatment lavished on Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader of Myanmar, also known as Burma, on her three-week tour of Europe.But pressure is increasing on her to address simmering political crises at home, and to move her country's democratic changes forward.
In Geneva, Oslo, Dublin, London and Paris, Suu Kyi issued eloquent pleas for ethical foreign investment in Myanmar and foreign support for her country's ongoing reforms.
"This is the most important time for Burma," she told parliamentarians and dignitaries gathered in London's Westminster Hall.
"This is the moment of our greatest need," she continued. "And so I would ask that our friends both here in Britain and beyond participate in and support Burma's efforts toward the establishment of a truly democratic and just society."
'Reform Program' Still Fragile
Suu Kyi, the first foreign woman and Asian citizen to speak at Westminster in the palace's 900-year history, said that beyond President Thein Sein, it's hard to determine how much support the current efforts in Myanmar enjoy, especially within the country's military. It's an assessment shared by outside observers.
"The entire reform program in Myanmar now hangs by a very slender thread," says Vikram Nehru, a Southeast Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. He says Suu Kyi must quickly throw her considerable authority behind Thein Sein's key reform policies.
Enlarge Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images Rohingya Muslims, trying to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Myanmar, look on from an intercepted boat in Teknaf, June 13. The plight of the Rohingya minority is one of the tests Suu Kyi faces at home.
Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images
Rohingya Muslims, trying to cross the Naf river into Bangladesh to escape sectarian violence in Myanmar, look on from an intercepted boat in Teknaf, June 13. The plight of the Rohingya minority is one of the tests Suu Kyi faces at home.
Pressure is increasing for Suu Kyi to make good on her inspiring rhetoric about human rights. There's no starker example than the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar's western Rakhine state, next to Bangladesh.
Mob violence among Burmese Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims there has claimed at least 80 lives and created as many as 90,000 refugees in the past month.
Many Rohingya immigrated to largely Buddhist Myanmar from what is now Bangladesh generations ago. But neither Bangladesh's nor Myanmar's government recognizes them as citizens.
When asked in Oslo whether Rohingyas are citizens of Myanmar, Suu Kyi said she did not know.
"When you talk about the Rohingya, we are not quite sure whom you are talking about," she said. "There's some who say those people who claim to be Rohingyas are not the ones who are actually native to Burma but have just come over recently from Bangladesh."
A Sensitive Issue
Suu Kyi echoes popular complaints in Myanmar that the problem is caused in part by corrupt immigration officials along the border, and ineffective law enforcement in Rakhine state. She says that establishing the rule of law is the key to resolving the issue, but she does not suggest what the law should say.
"She finds herself in a very difficult position, because her constituency is known to be extremely anti-Rohingya," says Maung Zarni, a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Suu Kyi was elected to represent the remote rural township of Kawhmu, a three-hour drive from the main city of Yangon.
Maung Zarni points out that, when it comes to the subject of the Rohingya, the views of many Burmese pro-democracy activists are just as discriminatory and intolerant as those of the former junta they once fought.
"We must not be ashamed to admit that we have illiberal tendencies and elements within our culture and our practices, and they need to be rectified in accordance with the principles that we espouse or we are fighting for," Maung Zarni says. "You can't have it both ways. Are you for human rights, or are you against human rights?"
Maung Zarni suggests that Suu Kyi emphasize her principles while avoiding the specifics of the citizenship debate. He admits that he, too, opposes recognizing the Rohingya as one of the country's ethnic minorities.
Capitalizing On Recent Momentum
Fresh from her election to Parliament on April 1, and at the end of a triumphant tour of Europe, Suu Kyi now finds herself at an unprecedented level of popularity at home and abroad.
Some supporters point out that Suu Kyi is under considerable pressure not to upset the military into rolling back the changes and revoking her freedoms, and that she is working hard to build an organization that was focused on survival during decades of military suppression. They advise observers to be patient and not judge her too quickly.
But other supporters say Suu Kyi can afford to waste neither time nor opportunities to consolidate and push forward the country's fledgling reforms.
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