|
Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi 'not satisfied' with junta talks
2008-01-30
Myanmar's detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is "not satisfied" with her talks with the nation's junta, which after three months have yielded few results, her spokesman said Wednesday. The Nobel peace prize winner, who has been under house arrest for 12 of the last 18 years, made the statement during a rare meeting with top members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party. She was taken from her home in an official convoy to a military facility, where she met for about 90 minutes with eight NLD officials, and then for 45 minutes with the junta's liaison officer, party spokesman Nyan Win said. The military appointed Labour Minister Aung Kyi as a "relations minister" to coordinate contacts with her in the wake of a deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protests in September. They have now met five times since late October, but the talks have produced no visible changes. Instead, the military has tightened the screws on political dissidents, arresting a popular blogger, intensifying pressure on the media, and bringing charges against 10 prominent protest leaders. "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not satisfied with her meetings with the relations minister, mainly because there is no time frame" to the process, Nyan Win told reporters, using an honorific. He also read out a statement from Aung San Suu Kyi, who said she cherished her supporters' sacrifices and urged the public to remain patient. "So far we have not received any clear message from the government," she said in the statement. "We have to be patient, as we have sacrificed for many years," she said. "I don't want to give false hopes to the people. I will tell the people more when the time comes." Aung San Suu Kyi quoted her father, liberation hero Aung San, telling the public to "Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst." She also repeated her party's call for tripartite talks bringing together the military, the NLD and the armed ethnic groups that have battled the junta for decades. For the first time since her talks with the junta began three months ago, she referred to the military's self-proclaimed "road map" to democracy, which has been widely dismissed by western nations as a sham. She said the road map should be "all inclusive," although her own party has boycotted the process in protest at her detention. The protests spearheaded by Buddhist monks in September were the biggest threat to military rule in nearly two decades. The United Nations says at least 31 people were killed during the suppression, and 74 remain missing. Hoping to quell international outrage at the bloodshed, Myanmar made a series of conciliatory gestures, including allowing UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari and a UN rights investigator to visit the country. Gambari made two trips to Myanmar, but when he requested to make a third this month, the junta put him off until April. Ten leaders of last year's protests have been charged with violating the nation's strict publishing law, a crime punishable by up to seven years in prison, the NLD said Tuesday. US State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey denounced the charges as "further evidence that the regime is rejecting all efforts to promote dialogue and national reconciliation." Meanwhile censors have tightened controls on the media, banning one newspaper for a week over an article that said the government had backtracked on a huge hike in fees for satellite television. Another paper was forced to suspend publication for printing a love poem that carried a secret message calling junta leader Than Shwe "power crazy."
| 
