Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the Myanmar opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) Aung San Suu Kyi is injured and back in detention after the military last week mounted a crackdown on her supporters. All the top NLD leaders have been arrested and party sources claim 60 people were killed when a pro-government mob attacked an opposition party meeting.
The military government by contrast claims that only four people died in the riot but has gone on to claim that as a result of the violence, Suu Kyi has been taken into protective custody. Why is the military regime unable to protect its citizens with the normal forces of law and order? If Suu Kyi had felt endangered, she would have asked for protection. In truth, this disturbing turn of events is just another example of the lies and humbug coming from an increasingly ruthless military junta casting around for ways to hang onto its power.
If the spiriting away of the opposition leader to a military barracks really were simply for her own protection, why then is it that the Rangoon junta has been unable to assure UN envoy Razali Ismail that he will be able to meet her, when he returns to Myanmar on Friday, in an effort to restart the negotiations between the junta and the opposition? Do Myanmar‘s generals fear that he too will be a threat to their prisoner’s safety?
We should not meanwhile be fooled by talk of a split within the military. The story picked up by Myanmar-watchers is that the hard-line junta leader Gen. Than Shwe is opposed by younger officers led by intelligence chief Gen. Khin Nyunt, who believe that continued negotiation with the opposition is essential. This is simply more obfuscation. In truth, there is little to talk about. The military have to give up the power they seized in 1989.
Their crimes include financing their own dissolute lifestyle with the proceeds of narcotics and the plunder of Burma’s natural resources, not least its precious rain forest lumber. When Than Shwe and the supposed hard-liners fall, so too will Khin Nyunt and the so-called doves. At the very best the intelligence chief may have been trying to parley himself softer treatment when the military loses power. It is, however, far more likely that his rumored disaffection with the hard-liners is trumped up to give the impression that the international community still has a chance if it continues talking to the junta.
In reality, this is a regime funded by drugs and plunder. We must now fear for the life of Suu Kyi. The international community must therefore make it abundantly clear that her death would be murder, for which all Burma’s military rulers will be held responsible, without exception.
