Monday, May 18, 2009

Trial begins: Burma's democracy leader

Aung Hla Tun Aung Hla Tun

Protesters in support of Burma's detained opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, hold a rally calling for her release outside the Myanmar embassy in Tokyo May 18, 2009 (Reuters/Michael Caronna).

BURMA (Reuters) – Allies of Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi gathered outside Insein prison in Yangon (Rangoon) on Monday where the Nobel Peace laureate faces trial on charges that could lock her away for five years.
The military regime has ignored international outrage at what critics call trumped-up charges against Suu Kyi, accused of breaking the conditions of her house arrest, which had been due to expire on May 27 after six years of detention.


VIDEO: Pro-democracy opposition leader on trial

Win Tin, a senior member of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) and the country's longest-serving political prisoner until his release last year, led 200 NLD members in a protest outside Insein Central Prison.

They were watched by armed police manning barbed-wire barricades and members of a pro-junta militia. Plain-clothes officers kept busy snapping photographs of the protest. Businesses in the area were ordered to close.

One leader of the NLD youth wing was arrested near the prison, but party officials did not have more details.

The government has called 22 witnesses against Suu Kyi and a verdict in the closed-door trial was not expected on Monday. If convicted, she faces three to five years in jail.

"She is ready to tell the truth that she never broke the law," her lawyer Kyi Win said.

Critics have accused the regime of trying to sabotage her defense by revoking the law license of Aung Thein, a prominent activist lawyer, at the weekend.

U.S. diplomats were seen entering the prison where John Yettaw, the American intruder who triggered the case against Suu Kyi by sneaking into her lakeside villa earlier this month, faces trial on several charges.

CLAMPDOWN
Critics say the trial is aimed at keeping the charismatic opposition leader in detention ahead of multi-party elections in 2010, derided by the West as a sham aimed at entrenching more than four decades of military rule in the former Burma.

The generals have not forgotten the NLD's landslide election victory in 1990, which the military rejected.

"The trial is all about keeping any voices of dissent silent in the run-up to rigged elections next year," said Zoya Phan of the Burma Campaign UK, which said demonstrations would be held at Myanmar embassies in 20 cities around the world on Monday.

The military has detained Suu Kyi for more than 13 of the past 19 years, much of that time at her Yangon home guarded by police, with her phone line cut and visitors restricted.

Yettaw, a 53-year-old Missouri resident who used homemade flippers to swim to Suu Kyi's home this month, is charged with immigration violations, encouraging others to break the law and entering a restricted area.

His motives are unclear. He swam to her home before, on November 30 last year, and left a copy of the Book of Mormon after she refused to see him, according to a copy of the police complaint translated by the U.S. Campaign for Burma, a pro-democracy group.

He tried again on the night of May 3.

"This time, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi allowed him to stay at her residence until the night of May 5, 2009, spoke with him and provided him food and drinks," the police complaint said.

Kyi Win said Suu Kyi had told Yettaw to leave, but he refused. She did not report him to authorities because "she did not want anybody to get into trouble because of her," he said.

Western governments, the United Nations, human rights groups and fellow Nobel laureates have condemned the charges against Suu Kyi and called for her immediate release.

U.S. President Barack Obama renewed sanctions against the military government on Friday, saying its actions and policies, including the jailing of more than 2,000 political prisoners, continued to pose a serious threat to U.S. interests.

The reaction from Asian neighbors, which have an eye on Myanmar's rich timber, gas and mineral reserves, has been mixed.

China and India have been silent, but the Philippine government said it was "deeply troubled and outraged over the filing of trumped-up charges" against Suu Kyi and worried about her health in the country's most notorious jail.

"These recent incidents will surely impede the process of national reconciliation and the roadmap to democracy in Myanmar," Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo said.

Asian governments have favored a policy of engagement, but neither it nor sanctions imposed by the West have coaxed meaningful reforms from junta leader Senior General Than Shwe, widely believed to loathe Suu Kyi.

He is pressing ahead with a seven-step "roadmap to democracy" expected to culminate in the elections in 2010. Source

(Writing by Darren Schuettler; editing by Alan Raybould)

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