Finally, Myanmar Junta releases Aung San Suu Kyi

Agencies

Yangon, 13 November 2010: A Myanmar official said on Saturday that democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had been freed from house arrest. "She is released now," said the government official, who did not want to be named. Leader Senior General Than Shwe had yesterday approved an order to free his arch enemy from seven years of house arrest.

 

A crowd of journalists gathered in front of her house along with thousands of protesters. "Nothing has happened so far, but her house arrest expires today, so we think she will be released today," Nyan Win, a lawyer for Suu Kyi, had said this morning.

 

Once freed, he said, Suu Kyi would meet her party’s leaders before deciding her next step. Analysts said it was likely only Than Shwe and his closest allies knew the real fate of Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years locked up because of her opposition to nearly half a century of military rule in the former Burma.

 

With the November 07 election, the first in 20 years, out of the way and won by an Army-backed party, the generals could seek some international legitimacy by freeing Suu Kyi, daughter of the hero of Myanmar’s campaign for independence from Britain.

 

Such a move is seen as the first step toward a review of Western sanctions on the resource-rich country, labelled by rights groups as one of the world’s most corrupt and oppressive.

 

Breathing space

 

Freeing the 65-year-old pro-democracy leader could also divert some attention from an election widely dismissed as a sham to cement military power under a facade of democracy. "The regime needs to create some breathing space urgently," said a retired Burmese academic, who asked not to be identified.

 

"They may do that by releasing her and might think it will help improve an image tarnished by electoral fraud." But pessimists question whether the generals really care about their image when they are assured of diplomatic and economic support from their neighbours, in particular, China.

 

Releasing Suu Kyi, who has backed moves to isolate the regime, carries risks for the military as it seeks legitimacy for the election and for a new government that will be set up.

 

Suu Kyi is still believed to have the same mesmerizing influence over the public that helped her National League for Democracy win the last election in 1990 in a landslide, a result the military ignored.

 

She could draw big crowds to the gates of her home in Yangon and with a few words could rob the election of any shred of legitimacy it might have, possibly seeking to have the results annulled on grounds of fraud.

 

Many experts say the sanctions also benefit the junta, allowing generals and their cronies to dominate industry in the country of 50 million, rich with natural gas, timber and minerals with a strategic port in the Bay of Bengal.

 

Trade with the West has been replaced by strengthening ties with China, Thailand and Singapore, whose objections to the regime’s human rights record are relatively muted.

 

"There are a lot of people with a lot at stake in maintaining the status quo," said Sean Turnell, an expert on Myanmar’s economy at Sydney’s Macquarie University.