EBO BURMA NEWS 18 JULY 2003
News Summary:
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1. Japanese Foreign Minister Calls for
Dispatch of ASEAN mission to
2.
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Japanese Foreign Minister Calls for Dispatch of ASEAN mission to Burma
Kyodo News
mission
to
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Foreign Minister Yoriko
Kawaguchi
told
her Indonesian counterpart on Thursday (17 July).
"It is quite important that ASEAN work towards resolving the issue,
and I
hope
ASEAN will send a mission to
officials
as telling Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayudha in a
telephone
conversation. The 10-member ASEAN is exploring the possibility
of
a high-level mission to
early
as possible.
Hasan
responded that ASEAN will make efforts to achieve her release, the
officials
said.
The junta detained Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and other leaders
of
the National League for Democracy on 30 May in northern
following
what the junta claims was a clash between Suu Kyi's supporters
and
backers of the government.
Suu Kyi's detention, as well as the North Korean nuclear issue, is high
on
the
agenda at an Asia-Europe Foreign Ministerial Meeting to be held in
---------------------------------------
The Straits Times,
its charismatic leader Aung San Suu Kyi six
weeks ago, with its entire leadership
in detention.
The crackdown has led to a dramatic
reversal of fortune for the long-suffering
National League for Democracy (NLD) which
had enjoyed a rare revival in the past
year after Ms Suu Kyi was released from house
arrest.
After the junta promised that Ms Suu Kyi
would be free to carry out political activities,
the Nobel peace laureate and her enthusiastic
rank-and-file members had seized
the opportunity to rebuild the party by
reopening hundreds of branch offices
around the country.
Although a political reconciliation
process begun in October 2000 at the bidding
of the United Nations (UN) made little
progress in achieving democratic reforms,
the brief period of openness revived the
opposition's spirits.
That ended on May 30 when Ms Suu Kyi's
supporters were ambushed by
a pro-junta mob during a political tour of
detention at an undisclosed location.
NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo, who was
accompanying her, was thrown into jail and
the rest of the party's leaders were put
under house arrest in
guards stationed in front of their homes and
their telephone lines cut.
An unknown number of opposition supporters
were also taken into detention and
the party's head office in
'The opposition simply does not exist any
more,' said one diplomat in
'The party's headquarters is closed, the activists are in prison or on
the run - in effect, there is nothing left.'
A senior member of the NLD said the
crackdown, which has drawn intense criticism
abroad, had left the party completely paralysed.
'The NLD is undergoing another period of
intimidation and harassment as the
military continues with its mopping-up operation,'
he said.
The ruling State Peace and Development
Council, whose past campaigns of
repression had left the party on the verge of
collapse before the UN-sponsored
talks began, has put it under intense scrutiny
once again.
'All I can say is that the crackdown
continues and any sign of dissent is quickly
nipped in the bud,' one member said.
Analysts in
arrests of opposition activists will continue
until the ruling generals consider
the situation to have 'normalised'.
The International Committee of the Red
Cross, which has been touring prisons
in recent weeks to visit those rounded up in
the wake of the clashes, says 30 have
been registered so far but dissident sources
put the figure above 100.
released, and in a tight-lipped response said only
that it had chosen
'the most
suitable way' to maintain law and order.
Given the junta's aggressive stance, no
one rules out the possibility that the
opposition party could simply be banned. – AFP
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