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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang  
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(Parliament, Monday) : The Myanmar military junta has again taken the United Nations and  ASEAN for a ride when it defied international and regional opinion and  extended the detention of  Burma’s democracy icon  Aung San Suu Kyi for another year on Saturday.

The hopes raised by the visit of the United Nations under-secretary-general for political affairs, Ibrahim Gambari, to Myanmar – the first by a UN envoy in more than two years when he was allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi -  that the Myanmar military junta was prepared to release the Nobel Peace Laureate and be a more responsible international player, was cruelly dashed  to the ground in a matter of days.

The continued incarceration of  Suu Kyi, who has spent 11 of the last 18 years under detention, is not only an indictment of the Myanmar military junta as one of the world’s  most repressive regimes for its brutal suppression of democracy and violation of human rights, but also of the United Nations and ASEAN for their impotence and irrelevance..

Both the regional and international opinion must tell the Myanmar military junta that “Enough is Enough” and follow up with  a concerted plan of action to put renewed pressure on the Myanmar military junta, both at international and regional levels, for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and over a thousand political prisoners and for meaningful progress in democratization and national reconciliation in Burma.

At the international level, the UN Security Council must place  the Myanmar issue on its official agenda to reflect  and pursue the annual  concerns of the  UN General Assembly on the prolonged humanitarian and democratic disasters in Burma

At the ASEAN level, initiatives should be taken at two levels:

• ASEAN Governments must demand accountability of the Myanmar military junta for its long list of broken promises about the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, democratization and national reconciliation; and

• ASEAN MPs should mobilize in an unprecedented ASEAN-wide show of consensus  to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and over a thousand political prisoners by the Myanmar military junta or the suspension of Myanmar from ASEAN.

The ASEAN Inter Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) at its meeting next month should decide on a three-month plan of action to mobilize and co-ordinate such an unprecedented ASEAN-wide show of consensus to send a clear and unmistakable message not  only to the Myanmar military junta, but to all ASEAN governments and the international community, including the UN Security Council, that the 18-year crisis of democracy and human rights in Burma, with no light at the end of the tunnel which has instead become longer and longer with the recent shift of the Myanmar capital to Pyinmana, is no more tolerable.

(29/05/2006)