The
(Myanmar) regime rejected calls by the international
community to halt its campaign against peaceful dissent,
claiming that it is following its own ‘road map’ to
democracy. On October 19, it set up a 54-member
committee to draft a new constitution, though no
opposition figures were included.” — International
Crisis Group Report on September 2007 Public Protests
And Government Crackdown.
A
court in army-ruled
Myanmar
sentenced opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to 18
months in detention on Tuesday, August 4, 2009, a
verdict that drew condemnation abroad and will keep her
off the political stage through next year’s elections.
The verdict drew criticism from leaders around the
world.
Britain’s
Prime Minister Gordon Brown called it “monstrous.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was “brutal and
unjust.” US President Barack Obama said the conviction
violates universal principles of human rights. China
however urged the world on Wednesday to respect
Myanmar’s judicial sovereignty.
The
charges stemmed from American intruder John Yettaw’s
two-day uninvited stay at Suu Kyi’s lakeside home in
May, which the judge said breached the terms of her
house arrest. Yettaw, who told the court that God sent
him to warn Suu Kyi she would be assassinated, was
sentenced to seven years’ hard labour in a parallel
trial on three charges, including immigration offences
and ‘swimming in a non-swimming area.’ Taken from news
reports in the international press.
Best of friends
Sri Lanka
is well-disposed towards Myanmar, and vice versa. This
is as it should be. The President visited
Yangon in June 2009 to celebrate 60 years of diplomatic ties
between the two countries, and was rewarded with a
handsome contribution towards IDP support which may even
have covered a fraction of the cost of his visit. In
reciprocation, the Myanmar Foreign Minister led a
delegation to
Colombo in early August where “Sri Lanka and Myanmar
agreed to continue joint and separate actions to curb
terrorism that is threatening the regional peace and
security and improve the bilateral relations between the
two countries.”
We
share so much in common, it’s uncanny. The Western
powers gang up against us to lie about our wonderful
human rights records, the hypocrites and charlatans.
Having failed to bring us down at the Human Rights
Commission, they are now training their guns on Myanmar
against a perfectly justifiable and transparent judicial
process, which was even tempered by “the quality of
mercy” in reducing the sentence meted out to that
trouble-maker Aung San Suu Kyi, who, in the immortal
words of our President can be seen to have chosen the
path of being a “minority” member by working against the
regime in power.
Who
knows, she probably orchestrated the whole thing, making
sure that a completely mad American swam across to her
home, uninvited at that, and warned her of an impending
assassination.
Mad,
but prophetic, maybe. Besides, the most heinous part was
that he swam in a ‘no-swimming’ area. He’s lucky he got
seven years’ hard labour for that alone. And, she has a
mere three years, reduced to 18 months, just so the
election will be over before she is free to contest and
win again. Yes, we have many things in common, but not
that problem, thank goodness! Our concern is not to
prevent the opposition leader from contesting, but to
make sure he does – on and on, over and over again –
perhaps we can pass a law making it illegal for anyone
else to lead the UNP?
Thus,
I believe, confining this relationship to curbing
terrorism with a little trade thrown in is to belittle
the potential for real learning and sharing between our
two great nations. For instance, the five decades of
military rule in Myanmar with no pretence of democracy,
and the ruthlessness with which the military
dictatorship deals with opposition of any kind (even
Buddhist monks) is certainly worth emulating.
At the
same time, all this fuss about the Nobel Laureate
daughter of Myanmar’s founding father is such a waste of
energy and simply brings the country into disrepute.
Fortunately, both for us and them, we have the same
friend in China who will veto UN sanctions and the like.
Now,
this 50 years of rule without elections is quite an
attractive proposition. We’ve only thought of two
generations so far. With fifty years to play around with
we can surely manage a third and even begin on a fourth.
Also, in dealing with the clergy that does not know its
place, Myanmar is a veritable goldmine of successful
strategy. But in some areas, we can surely teach them a
thing or two.
Help from Sri Lanka Police
Our
police force would have by now freed the regime of this
embarrassing Nobel Laureate, without having this nasty
court business cropping up every so long, right? She
doesn’t look like she’ll resist arrest or try to escape,
but maybe the mad American or her aids can be held
responsible for the tragic outcome.
These
Myanmarayas obviously lack imagination. There are so
many interesting possibilities of permanently resolving
this problem. For instance, since, we’re forming a
common front to fight terrorism, perhaps a
breakaway-in-hiding LTTE group can be persuaded to take
responsibility for the deed. Our local intelligence can
certainly dig up the dirt on this in no time. God knows,
they have always hated the likes of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Gandhi is bad enough, but he’s a part of mythology now,
while this woman is giving non-violence and pacifism a
truly bad name.
The
world judges us by our friends. We’re proud to be in
cahoots with Myanmar and China, Libya and Iraq because
they are like us in every way. They share our values of
democracy, decency, human rights, respect for the rule
of law, equality of all citizens. There is only one
major, key, absolute difference. All these countries
have despots and dictators, all of whom continue in
power by perfidy and foul play.
Some
have dispensed with the opposition entirely. Alone among
this group we have a President who has been and will
continue to be elected to power by popular franchise,
and whose only abiding concern is the wellbeing of his
people. Strange, isn’t it that within such similarity
there is so great a difference?
(gongalegodaya@hotmail.com)
