Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-04-Speech-4-255"
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"en.20030904.12.4-255"2
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"It is now more than three months since Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and Sakharov Prize winner, was – to put it purely and simply – kidnapped by the Burmese junta, who have been holding her in detention ever since. The UN emissaries and the representatives of the Red Cross have not been able to visit her regularly. Last July a delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross was probably the last contact that Aung San Suu Kyi had with the outside world. No one has seen her since.
Today, in the same way that the dictator denied secretly holding the young woman, the Burmese authorities are denying her hunger strike, made public on 31 August by the US State Department. The imprisonment and arrest of militants of the National League for Democracy in May quite rightly gave rise to much feeling in the world. The US took the opportunity to reinforce their economic sanctions on the Rangoon regime.
Today, the – no doubt demagogic – use of this announcement by the US cannot, however, hide the severity of the regime nor its hypocrisy in promising an official roadmap destined to restore democracy. This programme, which includes, and I quote, ‘free and fair elections and a new Constitution’, still does not fix a timetable and remains silent on the release of the leader of the opposition. It happened after the junta showed its desire to not respect any of the democratic demands of its people, and this is a bad omen. The results of the 1990 elections which, let us remember, were a landslide victory for Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, were not recognised by the armed forces.
The Association of South-East Asian Nations now threatens to exclude Burma from its members. It had hoped for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi before its next summit in Bali in October. As for the European Union, it should do everything possible to compel the military junta to free the Nobel Prize winner. In collaboration with the United Nations, the Council and the Commission should now show their determination, through strict sanctions, to do something practical in the process of democratisation in Burma. Political pressure should increase. Under the rule of one of the fiercest dictators, in the hands of a head of government who has held the duties of head of services of the military information for forty years, the Burmese people need all our solidarity. The worry such as that for the lady of Rangoon is a genuine one. Let us listen to the opposition, which has just declared that this hunger strike is a declaration that the Burmese generals are slowly but surely poisoning her."@en1
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