Steps taken towards talks in Burma
10/10/2007 - 09:13:43Burma’s military authorities arrested dissidents in raids today even as they responded to international pressure with apparent moves toward talks with their archenemy, democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, an exile group said.
At least five people were arrested over the past two days in Rangoon, while a member of Suu Kyi’s besieged political party died under interrogation, said a Burma exile group which tracks political prisoners in the country.
“The security forces have become more severe in raiding houses of and searching for anyone whom they suspect to have been involved in the protests,” said the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners said.
Thousands of students, Buddhist monks and others were arrested following the recent mass protests against 45 years of military rule in the Southeast Asian nation.
But both the junta and Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy appeared to be taking cautious, conciliatory steps to ease a vehement, two-decade-long deadlock.
The league said it was prepared to make “adjustments” for the sake of dialogue, and the junta has appointed a relatively flexible Cabinet-level official to co-ordinate contacts with Suu Kyi.
The junta’s top general offered last week to meet with Suu Kyi, who remains under house arrest. But he said she must first renounce her calls for international sanctions against the regime, which has been widely condemned for crushing mass, anti-regime protests last month.
Small groups of riot police today patrolled key road junctions and sites where the most intense protests had erupted, including the Shwedagon Pagoda and a junction near the downtown Sule Pagoda.
But soldiers were not visible on the streets, and Rangoon outwardly seemed generally normal. Some rumours circulated that a small protest might be staged.
The Burma exile group, made up of former political prisoners, said authorities in recent days informed the family of Win Shwe, 42, that the democracy activist had died while under interrogation in the central Burma region of Sagaing after he and five other colleagues were arrested on September 26.
His body was cremated at the detention centre in recent days, the group said. The report could not be independently verified.
The state-owned New Light of Burma newspaper said 60,000 pro-government demonstrators gathered yesterday in Paan in eastern Burma to support the junta’s own “roadmap to democracy” while denouncing the US and foreign radio stations.
“It is very important for people not to be misled by killers on the airways from some countries. A handful of internal destructive elements are to be exposed,” a department head at Paan University, Saw Nyunt Thaung, was quoted as saying.
Suu Kyi’s party yesterday called for talks with the junta, but urged it not to set conditions for any meetings.
“The success of a dialogue is based on sincerity and the spirit of give and take,” Suu Kyi’s party said in a statement, which was based on her past speeches. “The will for achieving success is also crucial and there should not be any preconditions.”
In its first comment since the regime held up the prospect of talks, the party appeared to be trying to encourage negotiations without abandoning its platform. The party emphasised past statements by Suu Kyi, but also said it could make “adjustments” for the sake of dialogue.
On Monday, state media said the regime had appointed Deputy Labour Minister Aung Kyi as the Cabinet’s “minister for relations” to co-ordinate contacts with Suu Kyi. He is considered more open than top junta leaders, who are deeply insular and fiercely hostile toward Suu Kyi.
The South-east Asian country has been ruled by the military since 1962, and protests that broke out in August over a fuel price hike quickly ballooned into mass demonstrations calling for democracy when widely respected Buddhist monks began spearheading daily marches.
Troops crushed the protests by shooting at demonstrators on September 26 and 27. The regime said 10 people were killed, but dissident groups put the toll at up to 200 and say thousands of people have been arrested.
The brutal crackdown ignited outrage around the globe, and international demands have grown for the junta to release the 62-year-old Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 18 years without trial.
The government said last week that the junta’s leader, Senior Gen. Than Shwe, was willing to meet personally with Suu Kyi if she met its conditions. Than Shwe has met with Suu Kyi only once, in 2002, and the talks quickly broke down.
Although it named a liaison official to deal with Suu Kyi, the junta did not indicate when he might meet with her.
The appointment of Aung Kyi, a retired major general, appeared to be a nod to the United Nations. The world body’s special envoy, Ibrahim Gambari, suggested creating the Cabinet-level job during his visit to Burma last week, state media said.
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