Aung San Suu Kyi’s deputy urged Myanmar’s ruling junta yesterday to engage the opposition in dialogue before elections this year, as he took his first steps outside as a free man in seven years.
Tin Oo, 83, vice chairman of Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD), made the appeal as he prayed at Yangon’s famed Shwedagon Pagoda following his release from house arrest late on Saturday.
“Because I am a Buddhist I came here to wish for peace for all Myanmar people,” he said as he toured the huge golden monument, accompanied by his wife and a dozen NLD officials who held umbrellas to protect him from the sun.
PHOTO: AP
“My feeling now is that I wish to find a way through successful dialogue that the whole country can live unitedly and peacefully,” he said.
However, he said his own release means nothing if Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, 64, and some 2,100 other political prisoners are still detained when the elections take place.
Tin Oo had been held since 2003, when he and Aung San Suu Kyi were arrested after a pro-junta mob attacked their motorcade during a political tour, killing 70 people.
He was a former army general and defense minister who was forced into retirement in the 1970s after falling foul of the country’s military rulers. He was in trouble again in the 1990s because of his involvement with the NLD.
“How can I be glad [that I am free] when there are so many who have been sentenced to life imprisonment? It is not enough to release me alone,” Tin Oo said.
“All people will be happy if all things can be discussed and a solution can be reached,” he said.
He said on Saturday that the government had warned him not to take actions that could “disturb the building of the state” but that he would continue his political activities and visit the offices of the NLD today.
Tin Oo’s release comes with the UN human rights envoy for Myanmar, Tomas Ojea Quintana, due to visit the country today to examine its progress.
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