Happy 60, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

[Monte Smith]

And down with the Burmese junta!



Born: June 19, 1945. Arrested: 1989.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will celebrate yet another birthday under house arrest on Sunday while pro-democracy activists around the world stage protests against the military junta.

The Nobel laureate turns 60, but even though the milestone bears little extra significance in Burmese culture, lobbyists from the United States to Asia to Europe are using the date as a rallying point against Yangon's generals.

Given the isolation and intransigence of those in charge of the former British colony, which has been under military rule for more than four decades, making noise and gestures from afar is about all the junta's opponents can do.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued yet another call for the release of Suu Kyi, who has spent nine of the past 16 years behind bars or under house arrest for demanding the army honor the results of 1990 elections it lost.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did the same, while South African Archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu chipped in with a video message of solidarity to 200 Myanmar exiles at the U.S. Senate.

Fellow Nobel laureate, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, added his voice to the chorus. Former Czech prisoner of conscience-turned President Vaclav Havel wrote in The Washington Post he still hoped for reform even though the situation for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and its aging leaders appears hopeless.

CAKES, CARDS, SONGS AND SILENCE

At the Myanmar Embassy in Washington on Friday, California Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos hailed Suu Kyi as "one of the greats of our age" and delivered a box containing hundreds of birthday cards sent from 20 countries and each of the 50 U.S. states.

The mission appeared shut and no one accepted the cards.

The gesture by Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress, capped a protest of about 100 Myanmar exiles and U.S. activists, who chanted, "Burma, Burma must be free. Freedom, justice, democracy."

U.S. rock band REM will dedicate a song to Suu Kyi at a Sunday night concert in Dublin.

But in Bangkok, the base for many Myanmar refugees and activists until a crackdown last year by Thai police, opposition will be muted -- 60 people will sit in silence for 61 minutes in a university auditorium.

Whatever the gestures, and whatever their volume, they are unlikely to make any difference to a government that appears immune to international pressure, be it U.S. trade sanctions or bans on its sports minister going to the Olympic Games.

The generals say they are moving steadily toward democracy under a seven-step "roadmap to democracy," but nobody believes them and the junta refuses visas to journalists, human rights workers or U.N. diplomats who want to find out for themselves.

"We need desperately a channel of communication because we have to know what is the future of the roadmap," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar who has not been allowed into Yangon since November 2003.

"At this moment we are in a sort of deadlock," he said.

In Myanmar itself, NLD officials say they are planning a repeat of last year's gathering of a few hundred supporters at the party's dilapidated Yangon headquarters.

(Additional reporting by Tessa Unsworth and Paul Eckert in Washington)

Damn.


That's one of the hottest 60 year old broads I've ever seen.

[tristano's ghost]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

And down with the Burmese junta!



Born: June 19, 1945. Arrested: 1989.

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will celebrate yet another birthday under house arrest on Sunday while pro-democracy activists around the world stage protests against the military junta.

The Nobel laureate turns 60, but even though the milestone bears little extra significance in Burmese culture, lobbyists from the United States to Asia to Europe are using the date as a rallying point against Yangon's generals.

Given the isolation and intransigence of those in charge of the former British colony, which has been under military rule for more than four decades, making noise and gestures from afar is about all the junta's opponents can do.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued yet another call for the release of Suu Kyi, who has spent nine of the past 16 years behind bars or under house arrest for demanding the army honor the results of 1990 elections it lost.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack did the same, while South African Archbishop and Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu chipped in with a video message of solidarity to 200 Myanmar exiles at the U.S. Senate.

Fellow Nobel laureate, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, added his voice to the chorus. Former Czech prisoner of conscience-turned President Vaclav Havel wrote in The Washington Post he still hoped for reform even though the situation for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and its aging leaders appears hopeless.

CAKES, CARDS, SONGS AND SILENCE

At the Myanmar Embassy in Washington on Friday, California Democratic Rep. Tom Lantos hailed Suu Kyi as "one of the greats of our age" and delivered a box containing hundreds of birthday cards sent from 20 countries and each of the 50 U.S. states.

The mission appeared shut and no one accepted the cards.

The gesture by Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in the U.S. Congress, capped a protest of about 100 Myanmar exiles and U.S. activists, who chanted, "Burma, Burma must be free. Freedom, justice, democracy."

U.S. rock band REM will dedicate a song to Suu Kyi at a Sunday night concert in Dublin.

But in Bangkok, the base for many Myanmar refugees and activists until a crackdown last year by Thai police, opposition will be muted -- 60 people will sit in silence for 61 minutes in a university auditorium.

Whatever the gestures, and whatever their volume, they are unlikely to make any difference to a government that appears immune to international pressure, be it U.S. trade sanctions or bans on its sports minister going to the Olympic Games.

The generals say they are moving steadily toward democracy under a seven-step "roadmap to democracy," but nobody believes them and the junta refuses visas to journalists, human rights workers or U.N. diplomats who want to find out for themselves.

"We need desperately a channel of communication because we have to know what is the future of the roadmap," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar who has not been allowed into Yangon since November 2003.

"At this moment we are in a sort of deadlock," he said.

In Myanmar itself, NLD officials say they are planning a repeat of last year's gathering of a few hundred supporters at the party's dilapidated Yangon headquarters.

(Additional reporting by Tessa Unsworth and Paul Eckert in Washington)

Hell, I'll drink to that.

[Monte Smith]

Quiet prayers, protests as Suu Kyi turns 61
By Aung Hla Tun



YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 61st birthday under house arrest on Monday while pro-democracy activists around the world staged protests against the military junta.

At Yangon's Town Hall, a lone male protester shouted "Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi" for several minutes in a rare public protest before police bundled him away, witnesses said.

Rallies were to be held in more than 25 countries to demand the freedom of the Nobel Peace Laureate, who has spent 10 of the past 17 years in some form of detention.

In London, British Prime Minister Tony Blair said her detention was "utterly unacceptable," while Southeast Asian lawmakers meeting in Jakarta urged Myanmar's suspension from the 10-nation ASEAN regional group.

But their protests are likely to fall on deaf ears in Yangon, where the military, which has ruled the former Burma since 1962, clamped tight security on the road outside Suu Kyi's home.

Armed security men manned barricades and stopped traffic from passing in what appeared to be a move to prevent supporters of "The Lady" from gathering near the lakeside villa where she is under house arrest.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) hosted a gathering of 200 supporters at its ramshackle headquarters where nine doves were released amid prayers for her freedom.

"Let us pray for her good health and for her immediate release and the release of all other political prisoners," said Aung Shwe, chairman of NLD which won an election landslide in 1990 only to be denied power by the military.

Suu Kyi's house arrest was extended for another year on May 27 despite a direct appeal from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to junta leader Than Shwe to "do the right thing."

CALL FOR ACTION

The United States has since called for the U.N. Security Council to put pressure on Yangon, saying the "regime's activities and repression of political rights now poses a threat to stability, peace and security in the region."

But the U.S. initiative is likely to be strongly opposed by veto-wielding council members China and Russia, as well as by Japan, an elected member that lacks veto power.

South African Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu and former Czech President Vaclav Havel said "we are aware that Burma is not today's only hot issue," but the lack of international action gives regimes like Yangon "a sense of impunity."

Suu Kyi's latest stretch of detention began on May 30, 2003 after clashes between her supporters and pro-junta demonstrators.

Since then, she has been held virtually incommunicado, with her telephone line cut, her mail intercepted and visitors restricted to her house maid and doctor.

"Aung San Suu Kyi could spend the rest of her life in detention if the Security Council continues to avoid its responsibility to tackle the situation in Burma," Yvette Mahon, director of the Burma Campaign UK, said in a statement.

But whatever the gestures, and whatever their volume, Monday's protests are unlikely to make any difference to a government that appears immune to international pressure and insists her detention is a "domestic issue."

The generals say they are moving toward democracy under a seven-step roadmap, but the process is still only midway through the first step of drafting a new constitution.

In Bangkok, the base for many Myanmar refugees and activists, 30 people held prayers and issued a statement urging tougher action from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations against its most troublesome member.

"She is our hope and our victory," said San San, an exiled NLD MP who fled Myanmar after the 1990 election.