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BURMA: US Citizen Helps Junta to Further Torment Aung San Suu Kyi

Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK, May 14 2009 (IPS) - As if the torment she has endured at the hands of the country’s military regime were not bad enough, Burma’s pro-democracy icon may be condemned to more years of detention due to the foolhardy exploits of an oversized, middle-aged Vietnam War veteran from the United States.

On Thursday morning, Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was taken from her rambling colonial-era home on the banks of the Inya Lake in Rangoon, the former capital, to a special court in the sprawling compound of the notorious Insein prison, located north of Rangoon.

The 63-year-old Suu Kyi and two of her live-in assistants, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, were charged by a judge in the court renowned for its secret trials of violating the conditions of Suu Kyi’s current spell under house arrest, which began in late May 2003.

Also charged during that court session was John William Yettaw, the 53-year-old U.S. national. Yettaw burst into the headlines after it was revealed that he had been arrested by the Burmese police last week for staying at Suu Kyi’s home for two days as an uninvited guest.

Yettaw was able to sneak into Suu Kyi’s home on the night of May 3 by swimming a two-km distance across the Inya Lake. He was caught by the authorities of Burma, or Myanmar, as he was swimming back after his intrusion, an act that violates the country’s harsh internal security laws.

The trial, which begins on May 18, could result in Suu Kyi ‘’potentially subject to three additional years of imprisonment under Article 22 of the State Protection Law,’’ reveals Jared Genser, Suu Kyi’s international lawyer, in a statement. ‘’We unequivocally condemned this transparent attempt by the Burmese junta to cloak its on-going detention of Aung San Suu Kyi in a veil of legitimacy.’’

This 1975 law, which came into force when the Southeast Asian country was under the grip of its first military regime, states that ‘’any person against whom action is taken, who opposes, resists or disobeys any order passed under this Law shall be liable to imprisonment for a period of three years up to five years.’’

The intrusion of Yettaw in Suu Kyi’s home came at a moment when the junta was running out of excuses to keep the leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the largest opposition party, shut away from political life. Last year, the regime had gone on record stating that it would not budge from keeping Suu Kyi under house arrest for the maximum period of six years, which runs out later this month, on May 27.

Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 years under house arrest, the latest phase beginning after thugs linked to the junta attacked her and other NLD leaders as they were out campaigning in central Burma on May 30, 2003.

The junta’s fear of Suu Kyi’s countrywide popularity stems from the impressive performance of her party during the 1990 general elections. The NLD won a landslide victory, securing 82 percent of the seats in the 485-member legislature.

But the military dictatorship refused to recognise the results, denying power to the National Coalition Government for the Union of Burma (NCGUB), and forcing leading members of this elected administration to function in exile.

To avoid a repeat of such a drubbing, the current regime, led by Senior Gen. Than Shwe, has pushed through a controversial constitution aimed at holding a stage-managed general election in 2010 that places many restrictions on parties like the NLD.

For its part, the NLD, at a rare summit of its leaders earlier this month in Rangoon, declared that its participation in the next polls would require the junta to release Suu Kyi and over 2,100 political prisoners, many of whom have been thrown behind bars in Insein prison. Other conditions, such as the review of the 2007 constitution, were also laid out.

Naturally, the dismal fate that Suu Kyi now faces has aroused suspicions. ‘’The junta is creating the political atmosphere to further detain Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,’’ says Bo Hla Tint, foreign minister of the NCGUB, Burma’s government in exile. ‘’It is all politically motivated to continue her house arrest.’’

‘’From the beginning the authorities justified her detention as a case of protective custody,’’ he told IPS. ‘’So this is a security failure of the authorities. There is no point in the authorities blaming Daw Suu Kyi for not reporting the American intruder in her compound.’’

But curiosity about the U.S. national who has played a pivotal part in undermining hope of Suu Kyi’s freedom has grown among Burmese in the country and outside. So has the feeling of contempt towards a man who is reportedly a Mormon and who had told Burmese exiles he had met in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai and the town of Mae Sot, on the Thai-Burma border, that he was writing a ‘’faith-based book on heroism.’’

‘’He had introduced himself as a supporter of Aung San Suu Kyi. He had met some people from religious organisations,’’ says Nyo Ohn Myint, head of the foreign affairs committee of the NLD that operates along the border close to Thailand. ‘’He hadn’t come across as being serious.’’

‘’It is possible that he was set up by the junta or used by them, because we hear that he was encouraged to go on this mission by a Burmese-speaking gentleman,’’ Nyo Ohn Myint revealed in an interview. ‘’People thought the whole thing was a joke when they first heard what happened; that this guy never existed; it was quite bizarre.’’

‘’Did John William Yettaw consider the consequences? Did he think for a minute that he would do more harm than good? Probably not,’’ wrote Aung Zaw, editor of ‘The Irrawaddy’, a current affairs magazine published by Burmese journalists in exile, in a commentary that bristled with rage.

‘’If the regime leaders were looking for an excuse to extend Suu Kyi’s house arrest, he has given them one on a plate,’’ added Aung Zaw. ‘’He didn’t conduct much research into the knock-on effects of his stupidity.”