BURMA: DEMOCRACY LEADER TRIAL A RUSE TO KEEP HER OUT OF POLITICS

  • by Zin Linn
  • Inter Press Service

Burma's state-run media reported on 23 May that junta-appointed chief judge Thaung Nyunt found Aung San Suu Kyi had breached the terms of her house arrest because of the entrance into her compound in early May of an American man who swam across the lake in front of her house and stayed uninvited for two days, writes Zin Linn, a former political detainee in Burma who now lives in exile and is presently the media and information director of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma.

In this article, Linn writes that Daw Suu Kyi proclaimed her innocence in front of the prison tribunal, arguing that incident occurred because of a security lapse of the authorities and that responsibility for allowing the American to enter lies with them.

The outcome of the trial was prearranged long before the American swimmer came into view. The junta always finds an excuse, reasonable or not, to keep Daw Suu Kyi behind bars. The trial is simply a tool used by General Than Shwe to exclude from the political arena this threat to protracted military rule.

Which leads us to the important question: Will the UN flex its muscles to stop the military's ongoing unilateral proceedings against the Nobel Peace laureate in lawless Burma? And has the world body already planned to address the disagreeable political circumstances there?

© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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