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Myanmar
More bricks in the wall around her
Aug 13th 2009 | BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition
The junta cocks another snook at the Burmese people and foreign opinion
Reuters
THE only surprise was that it took so long. After many delays, a court in Yangon this week delivered its
verdict on Myanmar’s opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. The ruling junta’s staunchest foe was
consigned to another 18 months of detention at her home, as punishment for a bizarre incident in May
when an American eccentric swam to her lakeside villa. This, the court ruled, broke the terms of the house
arrest she was already serving. Her reasonable defence, that as a prisoner she was in no position to fend
off uninvited visitors, was brushed aside by the court.
The pretext provided by the hapless visitor, John Yettaw, a 54-year-old Mormon, may have been
fortuitous. But the outcome was never in doubt. The junta was always determined to prolong Miss Suu
Kyi’s detention, which was about to expire, until after elections that are planned for some time next year.
At large, Miss Suu Kyi, who is probably as loved as the generals are hated, would jeopardise this tightly
controlled exercise. The last time the regime held an election, in 1990—when she was already locked up—
her party won over 60% of the votes and 80% of the seats. The results have never been honoured.
This week Miss Suu Kyi’s initial sentence was for three years’ hard labour. But in a carefully
choreographed intervention, the interior minister promptly stood up to announce that the junta leader,
General Than Shwe, had magnanimously commuted it. By giving a gentler sentence he may hope to
minimise international outrage. Another explanation was hinted at by Miss Suu Kyi’s lawyer, who
suggested the act of clemency might also complicate the appeal she is to make against the verdict. At the
very least, the manner in which Than Shwe directed her trial is a reminder, if one were necessary, of how
completely the armed forces control all of Myanmar’s institutions. The whole country is a prisoner of the
regime.
Mr Yettaw, who testified he was motivated to make his swim by a vision in a dream, was told to serve four
years’ hard labour and three years in prison. Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese scholar at Chiang Mai University
in Thailand, suggests that the regime will be keen to expel him sooner than that. The generals probably
do not want Bill Clinton pitching up in Yangon, as he did in North Korea, to appeal for mercy.
The trial has given the opposition, many of whose leaders are in exile or in jail, some publicity. It has
provoked routine international condemnation and calls from activists and others for an arms embargo and
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