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| Saturday, 29 May 2004 |
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Myanmar's hopes for democracy fade as Suu Kyi marks one year in custody BANGKOK, Friday (AFP) One year after a bloody crackdown on Myanmar's opposition, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi remains in detention with her party sidelined by the ruling junta which has embarked on a "democratisation" process without it. The deadly attack on the Nobel peace laureate's convoy, carried out by a pro-junta mob on May 30, 2003 during a tour of the nation's north, marked a dramatic deterioration in an already gloomy political scene. Within days, every top member of the National League for Democracy (NLD) was in custody and its offices were slammed shut nationwide - crippling the party which won 1990 elections but was never allowed to rule. As Aung San Suu Kyi began her third stint under house arrest, the ruling generals were hit with international outrage and tighter economic sanctions ordered by the United States and European Union. Japan suspended all new economic aid and Myanmar's neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations made the unprecedented move - under pressure from the US - of calling for the opposition leader's release. It was in this dire context that the junta in August unveiled a "democracy roadmap" billed as starting with a constitutional convention and ending in free elections - squarely aimed at deflecting the criticisms from abroad. "They want to whitewash Black Friday, the Depayin massacre, and they are using the convention in an attempt to do this," said Zin Linn, spokesman for the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma which represents elected Myanmar MPs in exile. The roadmap was launched on May 17 with the constitutional talks, which were completely discredited by an NLD boycott called when the junta refused its demands to free Aung San Suu Kyi and reform the forum's rules. One year after the "May 30" incident outside the town of Depayin, political observers say that prospects for democracy in Myanmar are even more faint. "At one point it was thought that the Depayin incident was going to be the catalyst for change, but then we realised that was not the case," said one Western analyst based in Yangon. "The international community gave the roadmap the benefit of the doubt but now there is nothing positive to be expected out of it," he added. "We are facing a hardening of their stance. There was a group (of generals) which wanted some change but they are not the ones who won." So Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday begins her second year in detention, confined to her home on the shores of Yangon's Inya Lake with no indication of when she will be freed. |
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