Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be freed when her house arrest ends in November, according to a government minister quoted by witnesses yesterday, but critics said that may be too late for this year’s elections.
Myanmar Home Minister Major General Maung Oo told a meeting of businessmen and local officials on Thursday that the 64-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner would be released in November, a month after many observers expect Myanmar to hold its first parliamentary elections in two decades.
The information could not be verified independently but three people who attended the meeting said the comment was made to an audience of several hundred people in Kyaukpadaung, a town about 565km north of Yangon.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The three witnesses requested anonymity and Home Ministry officials could not confirm the comments were made.
Aung San Suu Kyi, detained for 15 of the past 21 years, was sentenced to a further 18 months of detention last August for harboring an American who swam uninvited to her lakeside home, raising questions over whether the election will be a sham.
That incident took place last May, just before an earlier period of house arrest was due to end. Taking into account the three months she spent in a prison guesthouse after the incident, her 18-month sentence would end in November.
The planned election would be the first since 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party scored a landslide victory that the country’s junta refused to recognize.
Maung Oo also said 82-year-old NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo, a former defense minister and retired general, would be released on Feb. 13 after 10 years in detention.
The minister said the government would pursue an international-style market economy after holding “free and fair” elections, including loosening restrictions on car imports.
“We are not a power crazy government,” Maung Oo was quoted as telling the meeting in Kyaukpadaung. “The election will be held in 2010 without fail. I promise the election will be free and fair, there will be no cheating.”
Senior NLD official Khin Maung Swe said it was crucial Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo were released before the election.
“The most important thing is they must be freed in good time so that they can work for national reconciliation,” he said.
The military junta has not set a date for the vote but has promised US President Barack Obama and Southeast Asian leaders the vote would be free, fair and inclusive.
In recent months Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to meet the junta’s liaison officer and foreign diplomats.
The NLD has not yet said whether it would take part in the elections, portrayed by the generals as a move to a multi-party democracy but derided by opponents as a sham designed to let the army retain real power.
The US and others are reviewing policy towards Myanmar after years of sanctions and trade embargoes failed to get the junta to improve its human rights record or relax its grip on power.
Obama has offered Myanmar the prospect of better ties with Washington if it pursued democratic reform and freed political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS