Burma's junta to rule on detention of pro-democracy leader 27/05/2008 - 07:05:21
Burma’s military regime, already under fire for blocking international aid to cyclone victims, is expected to decide today whether to extend the detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi or set her free.
A decision to extend the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s detention would certainly ignite more criticism of the xenophobic regime.
Ms Suu Kyi’s five-year house arrest period expires tomorrow, said Nyan Win, spokesman for her National League for Democracy party.
The ruling generals have given no sign they would release Ms Suu Kyi, who has been confined for 12 of the past 18 years to her home in Burma’s largest city, Rangoon. Her latest period of arrest began in 2003.
An extension would add to the international community’s outrage and frustration with the junta, which is accused of blocking international aid to some 2.4 million survivors of Cyclone Nargis.
The junta has given some ground, promising to allow foreign aid workers into the most devastated areas. United Nations officials have expressed hope that they will soon be able to get help to more than a million cyclone survivors – if the generals keep their word.
More than three weeks after the May 2-3 storm, people still huddled along roadsides, desperate for any kind of handout.
The UN has estimated that less than half the 2.4 million people victimised by the storm have received emergency assistance.
In Pyapon, a coastal township south west of Rangoon, hundreds of makeshift huts were set up along a road. Women and children squatted outside as the children begged for food, their arms outstretched as vehicles passed.
The area can be reached quite easily, but the survivors said they had not received any aid from Burma’s military government and were surviving on donations from private citizens and Buddhist monks.
“I have no hope that the help will come,” said Aye Shwe, a 52-year-old farmer who has been living with his family of eight in a hut that he built with scrounged bamboo and thatch.
The family has relied on private donors who truck in rice and potatoes.
“We live from hand to mouth,” Aye Shwe said. “We have no buffaloes, no paddy fields.”
Burma authorities have been driving up and down the road since last week telling people by loudspeaker to go home. But Aye Shwe said the land on which his house stands, in a nearby paddy field, remains under waist- deep water.
Richard Horsey, a spokesman for the UN humanitarian operation in Bangkok, Thailand, said assistance could start flowing to those who needed it most in the next few days if the junta quickly allowed foreign experts into devastated areas.
The isolationist government has barred nearly all foreign aid workers and international relief agencies from the hard-hit Irrawaddy River delta since Cyclone Nargis struck.
Referring to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s announcement on Friday that the junta’s leader agreed to let international aid workers into hard-hit areas, Mr Horsey said: “It is critical that that gets translated to practical access on the ground. The signs so far are good.”
He said that if international aid groups could quickly scale up their operations, “in the coming days we can start to reach all of those that need to be reached”.
Mr Ban’s mission to open Burma’s doors to more assistance peaked on Sunday when donor nations offered more than £50m (€62.6m) to help the country recover. But they warned they would not fully open their wallets until given access to the worst-damaged areas.
Burma’s leaders are leery of foreign aid workers and international agencies because they fear an influx of outsiders could undermine control. The junta is also hesitant to have its people see aid coming directly from countries like the US, which it has long treated as a hostile power seeking to invade or colonise.
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Burma’s military regime, already under fire for blocking international aid to cyclone victims, is expected to decide today whether to extend the detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi or set her free.
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