Junta designed poll date ‘to keep Suu Kyi at bay’

Saturday, 14 August 2010 13:51 Kya Mya

New Delhi (Mizzima) – The Burmese junta’s choice of November 7 for its elections is designed to marginalise Aung San Suu Kyi and denotes a deliberate attack against the opposition; her National League for Democracy party, Western governments and international rights groups said yesterday.

Furthermore, the United Nations, the Association for Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) and governments were called to task to use the poll’s announcement yesterday to exert greater scrutiny on a deeply flawed electoral process and press for the release of more than 2,100 political prisoners, international justice advocate and research group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“The national elections announced by Burma’s military government … are designed to further entrench military rule with a civilian facade,” the group added.

Another rights group said the UN’s focus on the polls in Burma was misdirected.

The Union Election Commission (UEC), the military government’s electoral watchdog, announced the date for the country’s first elections in two decades through state-run broadcasters yesterday morning.

The United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia, and many Burmese and international rights groups, have called the polls a sham if the junta continues to shut out thousands of imprisoned political opponents, including Nobel Peace Prize-winner Suu Kyi. Six days after the polls, she is expected to be freed from house arrest, after spending at least 15 of the past 21 years in some form of detention.

“They [Burma’s ruling generals] are going to hold the election before the release of Aung San Suu Kyi because they want to marginalise her from any activities,” NLD vice-chairman Tin Oo told Mizzima. “They don’t want any appearance by her during the run-up to the election, because the military junta is worried that most Burmese nationals would come out to follow her speeches.”

This election will be the first since 1990, when Suu Kyi and the NLD won a landslide victory, a result the junta rejected as it clung to power and placed her under house arrest. It also imprisoned hundreds of her colleagues, students and activists, and recently annulled the win.

“It is a deliberate attack against opposition groups, as the election laws effectively bar Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners,” Dr. Myint Cho, a spokesman for Burma Campaign Australia, said.

The electoral laws promulgated in early March banned anyone who is serving or has served a prison term – which includes more than 2,100 political prisoners and Suu Kyi – from taking part in the upcoming elections. Soon after, the NLD announced a boycott of the polls, declaring the laws undemocratic and unfair. The party was disbanded in May because it refused to re-register with the UEC.

Even if she were freed ahead of the polls, the laws would also bar her from standing because of her “criminal” record and because her late husband was a foreigner.

The laws also ruled out any monks who led anti-government protests in 2007.

Burma has changed its constitution several times since gaining independence from British rule. The third and current statute was promulgated in 2008 after a widely condemned referendum was held days after Cyclone Nargis tore through the Irrawaddy Delta, killing 140,000 people and leaving more than two million affected or homeless. It reserves 25 per cent of seats in all three legislatures for the military.

The UEC in June issued tight rules on political party campaigning, another blot on the elections’ fairness, Burma Campaign Australia said.

Mizzima has reported however that campaigning by the main junta-supported contestant, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), has been conspicuously free from such constraints.

“They [UEC rules] bar all parties from marching against or criticising the regime, and chanting slogans during public rallies, so I can say categorically that the election will not be free and fair,” Myint Cho said.

Meanwhile, Burma Campaign UK yesterday said it wanted the UN to take stronger action instead of what the activists call feeble efforts at reform – centred on the polls.

The rights advocate’s comments came the day UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in New York he had “taken note” of the announcement while reiterating calls for the junta “to honour their publicly stated commitments to hold inclusive, free and fair elections”, Reuters reported yesterday.

He urged the release of “all remaining political prisoners” – which his spokesman said included Suu Kyi, the news agency said.

However, Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK, said the UN use of the elections as a focal point was misdirected.

“The new constitution in Burma means that even if the election in Burma is free and fair, the dictatorship remains, so we think it’s time to stop focusing on the process of the election, and start focusing on what the UN should be doing, which is negotiating for tripartite dialogue among the dictatorship, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy and genuine ethnic representatives,” Mark Farmaner, director of Burma Campaign UK.

“Even if Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to take part it would not be significant because the constitution keeps the dictatorship in power, because that is what the constitution is designed to do, so you would have to have the constitution rewritten”, Farmaner said.

The rights group from Australia, meanwhile, called on Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s government to impose sanctions and the world community too to place trade and investment curbs on the regime, which it felt would lead to negotiations.

Foreign investment in Burma’s onshore and offshore gas fields and purchases of their energy products was the main source of financial support for the ruling generals and had spurred their mass-destructive nuclear ambitions, it said.

“We strongly call on the international community, particularly the Australian government, to impose targeted trade investment sanctions on Burma to cut the financial lifeline of the regime and express hope that will push the regime to the negotiating table” Myint Cho said.

Western governments also weighed in yesterday on the election and conditions under which it was being organised.

US Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell dismissed Burma’s announcement as a “charade” and a “mockery of the democratic process”, Reuters reported.

Australia expressed “grave reservations” about Burma’s plan to hold its first elections in 20 years and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was also concerned about the elections’ legitimacy, the Australian Associated Press reported.

“We have grave reservations about the election process and the country’s highly restrictive political environment,” he told the news agency.

Mr Smith said Australia had repeatedly urged Burma to allow freedom of speech and assembly, and to work with the UN to make the election transparent.

Britain was apparently less reserved in its response, writing the polls off as a long-awaited but lost chance. Foreign Office Minister Jeremy Browne said: “These elections are set to be held under deeply oppressive conditions designed to perpetuate military rule.”

“The Burmese people should have a real chance to vote for change. Instead, the first opportunity in 20 years for Burma’s people to have a more open, stable and prosperous society has been missed,” Browne said.

Human Rights Watch further detailed institutional bias towards the military and former military officers that had been set up by the junta ahead of the polls.

“Today’s [August 13] proclaimed election date comes a week after the electoral commission announced the numbers of constituencies open to political parties. Both houses of parliament will reserve a quarter of all seats for serving military officers [110 out of 440 in the national level parliament and 56 out of 224 in the upper house],” the rights advocacy said.

In April, Prime Minister Thein Sein and more than 20 other senior generals with ministerial portfolios resigned from the military and registered with the new pro-government Union Solidarity and Development Party to contest the elections, it said.

“No one should be fooled. The generals may be exchanging their khakis for civilian clothes, but these polls are still a carefully arranged plan to keep power in the hands of the military junta,” Elaine Pearson, acting chief of Human Rights Watch Asia Division, said.

The group said it also had concerns that intimidation of people and political parties would intensify.

“The 2008 referendum was marked by voting irregularities, intimidation, and repression … laws limit public gatherings to five people … there are sharp restrictions on media coverage of the elections, and the Press Scrutiny Board acts as a censor to limit what Burmese journalists can publish,” it reported.

“Foreign journalists are also regularly denied access to Burma,” its statement said.

Burma is subject to arms, trade, finance and travel embargoes mostly imposed by Western countries, especially the US, Canada, Britain and many in the EU, mostly because of the junta’s human rights violations and violent suppression of opposition and ethnic minority groups.