Junta warns against protests for Suu Kyi

MILITARY-ruled Burma’s state media yesterday warned citizens against inciting protests as democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi began stockpiling supplies ahead of a possible five-year jail term.

A prison court is expected to deliver a verdict today in the Nobel peace laureate’s trial for breaching the terms of her house arrest by allegedly sheltering an American intruder who swam to her house. The New Light of Myanmar (as Burma is also known) state newspaper published a comment piece yesterday cautioning against anti-government factions and saying that “we have to ward off subversive elements and disruptions”.

“Look out if some arouse the people to take to the streets to come to power. In reality, they are anti-democracy elements, not pro- democracy activists,” the English-language article said. Security has been tight for all the hearings, with memories still fresh in Myanmar of massive anti-junta protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007 which ended in a bloody crackdown. A conviction is widely expected in the two-and-a- half-month trial, which has sparked international outrage. It has been repeatedly delayed as the junta fended off criticism and calls for the release of Suu Kyi.

The 64-year-old opposition icon has asked for English and French novels and Burmese-language books including dictionaries and religious works to help her pass the time if she is jailed, her lawyer Nyan Win said.

“I think Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is preparing for the worst,” Nyan Win, also a spokesman for her National League for Democracy (NLD), told AFP. Daw is a term of respect in Burmese.

Critics say the trial is a ploy by the regime to keep Suu Kyi locked up until after elections scheduled for 2010. She has already spent almost 14 of the last 20 years in detention.

The New Light of Myammar editorial pointed out that “people who are serving their prison terms do not have the right to vote or to stand for election”.

The newspaper also launched an apparent attack on the NLD, which won the country’s last elections in 1990, but was prevented from taking power by the ruling generals. The article denied that the military government was “power-craving”, saying it would not have called the elections next year or held a referendum on the constitution in 2008 if that was the case. The referendum was held just days after a cyclone devastated the south of the country, killing 138,000 people.

On Wednesday the newspaper warned against predictions of a guilty verdict in the trial and said anticipating the ruling amounted to contempt of court.

“We cried as we feel really sorry for her in our heart. But we will remember her words that we should ‘hope for the best and prepare for the worst’,” Aye Aye Mar, a senior NLD member, told AFP. John Yettaw, the US national who sparked the trial by swimming to her house, and two female assistants who lived with Suu Kyi are also on trial and face similar charges.

Yettaw said he embarked on his mission to warn Suu Kyi of a vision that she would be assassinated, while the opposition leader herself has said she did not report him to the authorities for humanitarian reasons.