Possible Release Aung San Suu Kyi

Nksagar - Sagar Media - RANGOON — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that Burma's ensuing election, in two decades, will not be lend credible unless the military rulers release Opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

A reports that Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s democracy movement, could be released after the elections.An unnamed official has reportedly told the AFP news agency that her release will happen after the elections. According to Burmese law, Aung San Suu Kyi should be released on November 13th. The United Nations has repeatedly ruled that her detention breaks international law.

"This is essential for the elections to be seen as credible and to contribute to Myanmar's stability and development," Ban said following a high-level meeting of the "Group of Friends on Myanmar" held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Monday.

Further Moon said the coming months leading to the November 7 vote would be crucial, and called on the military junta to ensure the polls were as "inclusive, participatory and transparent as possible." The U.N. Chief said participants at the meeting, held at the Foreign Minister level, "expressed their encouragement, concerns and expectations regarding the current process."

"At this critical stage in Myanmar's transition, it is all the more important that the Group, and especially Myanmar's neighbors, encourages Myanmar to engage meaningfully with my good offices. The Group encourages the Government of Myanmar to adopt a more constructive and forward-looking approach in its response to the international community's call for engagement," he said.

Detention of Burma's democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi will expires early next month,officials said Friday that only the ruling junta chief knows exactly when she will be granted freedom. Aung San Suu, Nobel Peace laureate locked for 15 of the past 21 years, ever since her opposition party swept the country's last elections in 1990, and the military refused to cede power.Now her latest term of house arrest ends Nov. 13, just days after the junta plans to hold the first elections since those ignored polls—timing that analysts say is hardly coincidental. There is wide speculation the junta will release her as an olive branch to the international community after its expected win in elections that many observers have decried as so rigged as to be meaningless. Suu Kyi's detention is considered a matter of national security and officials say any decision to release her would be made at the last-minute by Snr-Gen Than Shwe, the junta chief."We can assume that she will be released on Nov. 13, but we cannot say with certainty that it will happen. Only the junta chief will know if or when the release can happen," said one of two officials interviewed. "It is too early to say that she will be released on Nov. 13."

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy opposition party is boycotting the elections, which it calls unfair and undemocratic. As a result of not registering for the polls, the party has been dissolved, leaving no group that can effectively challenge the junta-backed party, which is expected to sweep the polls.

Critics call the country's first elections in two decades a sham and say the military shows no sign of genuinely relinquishing power.

The London-based rights group Burma Campaign UK issued a statement to express caution over recent reports about Suu Kyi's imminent freedom.

"We'll believe it when we see it," said Mark Farmaner, the group's director. "Regime officials have said similar things in the past, and Aung San Suu Kyi has remained in detention."

If Suu Kyi is released, it would be wrong to attach too much political significance to it, Farmaner said.

"She has been released twice before without there being any political change in the country," he said. "It is more likely that the dictatorship will try to use her release to attempt to persuade the international community to relax pressure on them."The international community has long demand the release of Suu Kyi and more than 2,100 political prisoners.
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