ASIA TRIBUNE : Date : 2003-11-23

Burma : Evolution towards a Democracy - Excluding the Nobel Laureate and Political Prisoners.

By Zin Linn

Burmese military junta, on 18 November 2003, made a press release that it released 58 prisoners on 17 November, including elderly men and pregnant women, while promising to free more people in order to highlight its ''Evolution towards a Democracy''.

In its information sheet N0. C- 2841 ( I/L ), the junta says nine prisoners above the age of 65 and 49 female prisoners, either pregnant or with young children were freed on 17 November on humanitarian grounds after their sentences were commuted.

The statement gives no details about their backgrounds and did not say whether they were criminals or political detainees. The latest releases came a week after United Nations human rights envoy Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro urged the junta to free all political prisoners, especially the elderly inmates who were approaching their 80s.

Burma's ruling junta which seized power since September 1988, faces international pressure for suppressing democracy and abusing human rights. Although the junta had sponsored the 1990 elections, it never honoured the election results that deserved a landslide victory to the National League for Democracy.

Releasing all political prisoners would be an important gesture for the military regime to signal to the international community that it was moving towards democratic political reform process, Mr Pinheiro told the media after his sixth visit to Rangoon.

But due to analysts in Rangoon, the junta has cleverly done the job of a trickster, as there was no single political prisoner out of 58 inmates released on 17 November. It's really a deception to the outside world. It also made no mention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who is under apparent house arrest and her supporters who have been in detention together with her after the “Black Friday.”

The Nobel laureate, who was detained on May 30, after clashes between the NLD supporters and pro-junta thugs, is still under arrest in her own house. But the regime says she is not being held under any security law even though it refuses to let visitors, including diplomats and party members to pay a visit. Her telephone-line has been disconnected and security troops are stationed around her residence.

The Lady has made her situation clear to Mr. Pinheiro who met her during his sixth visit to Rangoon that she would not accept freedom until all those arrested since 30 May 2003, have been released. Unfortunately, the junta has not made any offer to release her as yet.

The military regime's statement says that prisoners freed on 17 November are in good health and back home to their respective families. It also said that it will continue to release prisoners that will cause no harm to the community nor threaten the existing peace, stability and the unity of the nation as the country goes through a steady evolutionary period towards a democracy.

But, Prof. Pinheiro says in his 12 November 2003 Statement which he submitted to the Third Committee of the UNGA as Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar (Burma), that during his visit to Insein Prison, he interviewed 19 political prisoners. He was able to verify that the practice of extending the imprisonments of those who have served their full prison-term by placing them under ''administrative detention'' still continues. This practice, Mr. Pinheiro expressed, would continuously applied even to very elderly and infirm political prisoners.

The Special Rapporteur has condemned the practice as cruel and unacceptable. Although the junta's law provides for this measure, he called for the repealing of the relevant legislation, as these provisions are contrary to international human rights standards. And he also mentions the grounds for arresting these individuals is highly arbitrary. They were arrested for the exercise of their freedom of opinion and _expression.

Last February, Burmese military junta, eager to show the world it has cleaned up its human rights record, allowed a 10-day visit to two Amnesty representatives meeting government ministers and political prisoners. During their stay in Rangoon, Amnesty's Asia-Pacific programme director, Demelza Stubbings, urged the junta to scrap British colonial laws that are used to detain prisoners without giving them access to a lawyer, relatives or medical care. "Some of the laws that apply date from the British colonial period -- they are extremely outdated," Stubbings told Reuters television in an interview in Bangkok, shortly after returning from Burma.

"Basic fundamental human rights, including freedom of _expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly are in fact criminalized by many of the laws...and this is a matter of grave concern," Demelza Stubbings correctly pointed out.

As a campaign to free political prisoners in Burma, the NGOs and Burmese students held a forum in Bangkok on 8 August 2002 to mark the 14th anniversary of the Aug 8, 1988 political uprising, laying wreaths and also broadcasting a videotape in which the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi calls on the ruling junta to release all political prisoners. In her message Daw Aung San Suu Kyi says:

'' Democracy means pluralism. That means many parties, many strands of thought. That means that we have to be able to disagree. That means we have to be able to agree to disagree. Because of that, the holding of political prisoners saps peoples' confidence in the possibility of change. If people are going to be arrested for expressing their opinions, their political opinions, then how can we say that there is a hope for political freedom in Burma, and without political freedom, how can there be democracy? So, we repeat, again and again, we reiterate, that the release of political prisoners is the most important thing for all those who truly wish to bring about change in Burma. ''

The article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says,'' Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and _expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.'' But the Burmese generals have been turning a deaf ear not only the article 19 but also the entire declaration.

As a result, the number of political prisoners is increasing in the junta's prisons after the 30 May premeditated massacre at Dapeyin and many of them in life-threatening situation. Over thirty journalists are among those prisoners. It was confirmed that 83 unfortunate political prisoners had passed away in the hellish prisons of the junta.

The international community including human rights watch groups and media teams should not show tolerance to the Burmese generals for their inhumane behaviours and it's time to demand the military regime to release all political prisoners prior of their death as an important sign of ''Evolution towards a Democracy''.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said Suu Kyi's detention completely derailed Burma's moves toward democracy.

The military, which took over the government and in power since 1962, has ignored the 1990 parliamentary general elections victory by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party. All most all the senior NLD leaders have been under detention, and the party branch offices across the country closed, since May 30 of this year.

Up to this day, the legitimate democratic leader of the Burmese people and 1991 Nobel Peace laureate still remains under captivity and held on house arrest, whilst almost all of the NLD top-line leaders are under detention - approximately 1600 democracy activists including 37 Members of Parliament are also languishing in the junta's jails.

Generally the socio-economic situation in the country is rapidly deteriorating as a result of mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence of the ruling military regime.

It is a big comical circus when the Burmese generals are vociferously claiming at the top of their voice of the so-called “Evolution towards a Democracy” without gaining anybody’s trustworthiness.