There's military logic to Suu Kyi's trial
By Larry Jagan
BANGKOK - The trial of Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has
ended amid heightened security around the area near the court, with hundreds of
trucks full of armed soldiers stationed around Insein prison where the
proceedings took place. The prison court is expected to announce its highly
anticipated verdict on Friday, according to one of the opposition leader's
lawyers, Nyan Win.
The junta's plan to hold democratic elections next year - the first since Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) overwhelmingly won May 1990 polls
that were annulled by the military - has been put on hold pending the trial's
result. People familiar with the situation say that junta leader Senior General
Than Shwe will announce in the wake of the verdict the formation of a
civilian-led interim government that will hold administrative
power until elections are held next year. It's a move, analysts say, designed
to deflect growing international criticism.
In the meantime, international pressure is expected to mount, with high-pitched
calls for Suu Kyi's and an estimated 2,100 other political prisoners' immediate
release from detention. Several Western countries, including the United States
and the European Union, have threatened to up their current economic and
financial sanctions against the military regime if the pro-democracy leader is
sentenced to a new prison term. Suu Kyi was first arrested in 1989 and has
spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. For the past five years she
has been held in virtual solitary confinement and allowed only occasional
visits from her doctor and lawyer.
United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at a regional meeting held
last week in Thailand, dangled the prospect of US investment in exchange for
freeing Suu Kyi and a move towards genuine democracy. President Barack Obama's
administration had earlier hinted it would review US policy towards Myanmar,
but according to Clinton that review has been put on hold because of the Suu
Kyi trial.
Suu Kyi, a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, is on trial for breaking the terms
of her house arrest by harboring an uninvited US veteran, John William Yettaw,
who swam across the lake behind her house and into her back garden. Yettaw has
said that he was motivated by a vision that Suu Kyi would be assassinated and
he swam to her residence to warn her. The state-controlled media has accused
him of being an American agent.
Suu Kyi's la
wyers have argued that the law used to charge her to a possible five years in
prison, which is based on the 1974 constitution, is no longer valid. They have
also argued that the military appointed security guards posted around her
residence should be held responsible for any intrusion onto her property.
She was also not officially under detention according to the government's own
wording - meaning she could not have violated the terms of her house arrest,
according to Nyan Win,. Rather she has officially been held in her Yangon
residence since 2003 for "security reasons".
"We are confident that we will win the case if things go according to the law,"
Nyan Win told reporters outside the court on Tuesday. But, he added, the judges
in the case may make their decision based on other considerations. She is
already guilty, according to the state-run newspaper the New Light of Myanmar,
which published an editorial arguing against her innocence on the weekend.
"This may influence the judges," Nyan Win said.
Kangaroo court
Many critics and observers see the trial as a sham aimed at influencing the
upcoming election results in the military's favor. While the prosecution was
allowed 23 witnesses, of whom 14 took the stand, the defense was only permitted
two of the four witnesses they requested to appear in court, underscoring
rights groups' criticism that Myanmar's judiciary lacks independence.
"The trial has been entirely scripted and the end already decided beforehand,"
Mark Canning, the British ambassador in Yangon told Asia Times Online in an
interview. Canning based that assessment on his recent attendance at one of the
trial's closed-to-the-public hearings.
Regime critics have echoed that assessment. "The junta fears Aung San Suu Kyi
and wants to keep her locked up forever," said Zin Linn, a spokesman for the
Burmese opposition abroad and a former political prisoner now based in
Thailand. "With elections planned for 2010, they cannot afford to have her free
to campaign against them," he said.
"The trial is all about keeping all voices of dissent silent in the run-up to
the rigged elections planned for next year," said Aung Din, a leading Burmese
pro-democracy activist based in the US. "No one is in any doubt about the
outcome," said Moe Moe, a taxi driver in the country's main commercial city.
"Those men in green in Naypyidaw [the new capital some 400 kilometers north of
Yangon] know she is the people's hero and the real leader of this country," he
added.
While locals anxiously await the trial's verdict, few analysts believe that a
guilty verdict will spark major public protests similar to those in 2007, which
started as complaints against fast-rising food and fuel prices and later
brought thousands out onto the streets in broad anti-government demonstrations
led by Buddhist monks. That failed attempt at people's power regime change
became known around the world as the Saffron Revolution.
"There is no doubt people are angry at the regime and they will be even angrier
if they sentence Daw Suu [Kyi], but they also feel powerless against the
authorities, especially after the military crackdown against the saffron revolt
two years ago," a Western diplomat based in Yangon told Asia Times Online.
Local journalists agree that most local people are too worried and pre-occupied
with day-to-day survival to take to the streets. Yet there has been a storm of
international protest ever since the opposition leader was put on trial more
than two months ago. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon left Myanmar
in a huff earlier this month when Than Shwe declined his request to meet with
the detained pro-democracy leader.
Some believe the UN could soon table a resolution against Myanmar's military
regime through the Security Council, after reports emerged that a North Korean
ship was angling to deliver either missile parts or nuclear technology to
Myanmar in violation of a resolution passed against Pyongyang. Myanmar allies
China and Russia have blocked with their veto powers recent attempts at
Security Council censure against the regime's abysmal rights record led by the
US.
Last week, many Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries at a
high-level meeting at the Thai beach resort of Phuket called for her release.
US Secretary of State Clinton promised important changes in relations with the
military regime if Suu Kyi was freed. "If she was released, that would open up
opportunities ... to expand our relationship with [Myanmar], including
investments," she told reporters.
The regime has reacted angrily to what it regards as outside interference in
its internal affairs and said that international bullying would not influence
the judicial process. The call for Suu Kyi's and other prisoners' release is
"nonsense and unreasonable", said the New Light of Myanmar at the weekend in
response to the US and ASEAN calls for her release. "She must face punishment
in accordance with the law: the court will hand down a reasonable term to her
if she is found guilty, and it will release her if she is found not guilty,"
the paper said.
"It is not a question of whether the proceedings are fair or not, she should
never have gone on trial in the first place - it's a form of political and
legal theater," said Benjamin Zawacki, Amnesty International's Bangkok-based
Myanmar researcher. "As a prisoner of conscience, she should be released
immediately." Amnesty earlier this week awarded Suu Kyi its "Ambassador of
Conscience" award, which was accepted on her behalf by the Irish rock musician
Bono, who has long campaigned for her release.
All indications are that the generals, unless pushed by their main patrons in
Beijing, will as in the past ignore international calls for Suu Kyi's release
and genuine political change. "They have completely ignored all international
concerns, and gone on with their devastating, shattering repression of all
dissent, with extremely heavy sentences being handed down for the crimes of
democratic protest," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN's former special
rapporteur on human rights to Myanmar.
Than Shwe is believed to be waiting for the trial's verdict to further
marginalize Suu Kyi and her NLD political party before announcing plans to
transfer power to a civilian administration which would oversee next year's
elections, say some analysts and regime insiders. "The whole country will
really be surprised to see how power is handed over," Than Shwe reportedly told
a high-ranking visiting foreign official according to a source familiar with
the meeting.
Myanmar military sources confirm that the creation of an interim government is
the next step in the junta's roadmap towards "discipline democracy". In an
apparent move in that direction, all government ministries have been ordered to
complete all of their outstanding work by the end of August, including the
preparation of statistical information. Aung Thaung, Minister of Industry-1 and
a close confidante to Than Shwe, recently told his deputies that there would
soon be a new government and that he may no longer be a minister.
"According to Than Shwe's plans, all the current ministers will have to resign
if they are to join a political party and fight the forthcoming elections,"
said the Thailand-based independent Burmese academic Win Min. So far, he says,
there have been no hints as to who will make up the interim administration.
Myanmar-based diplomats are skeptical that any move towards a civilian interim
administration would be mostly cosmetic and still be controlled by the
military. "There have been abundant signals that the roadmap is not an
inclusive process and the referendum [in May last year] dispelled any remaining
doubts," said Pinheiro. "This is a hyper-flawed process that will not lead
anywhere - it's simply a consolidation of the military's control of the state."
Larry Jagan previously covered Myanmar politics for the British
Broadcasting Corp. He is currently a freelance journalist based in Bangkok.
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