Burmese junta releases Win Tin

The release of Burma’s longest-held prisoner of conscience is reported in today’s Times and widely reported worldwide too. In a move that damns the nation’s brutal regime with faint praise he was released yesterday in an apparent (and futile) attempt to improve its image a year after its brutal crackdown on democracy demonstrations.

Win Tin, a 78-year-old former journalist, was released after 19 years in Insein prison in the city of Rangoon. For much of the time he was held in solitary confinement, including a period in a room intended for prison dogs.

“I will keep fighting until the emergence of democracy in this country,” he said in Rangoon, a few hours after his release. He was still wearing his blue prison overalls as a symbol of rejection of the spin put on his release by the Government — that it was part of an “amnesty” of 9,002 prisoners to “turn them into citizens to be able to participate in building a new nation. I did not accept their terms for the amnesty,” Mr Win said. “I refused to be one of 9,002. They should have released me five years ago. They owe me a few years."

Mr Win, a poet and former magazine editor, was an adviser of Aung San Suu Kyi. He was sentenced to 21 years in prison in 1989 during a crackdown on government opponents. In 1996 he received an additional seven-year sentence for writing a testimonial on torture and lack of medical treatment in Insein, and sending it to the UN. As a punishment he was forced to sleep in a room intended for military dogs and was deprived of food and water.

At least six other political prisoners were released yesterday, at a time when Burmese are remembering the brutal suppression of democracy demonstrations last year. The amnesty may be an attempt to pre-empt commemorations of the peaceful uprising with a move that will win approval from Western governments and human rights groups.

Amnesty International estimates that there are 2,100 political prisoners in Burma. “These seven people should never have been imprisoned in the first place, and there are many, many more who should also be released,” Benjamin Zawacki, of Amnesty International, said.

While it it pleasing to see Win Tin released it is only a drop in a bucket – a token gesture. The people of Burma will not see better times until their regime is swept into the dustbin of history.

Aung Sang Suu Kyi remains under close arrest.

Burmese protests continue in face of threats

Protests in Burma triggered by a government decision last month to double fuel prices of fuel last month continue, despite warnings from the military. Chanting "we want dialogue" and "democracy, democracy" tens of thousands of monks and civilians staged new anti-government protests .

The protestors marched from Shwedagon pagoda into the commercial centre of Rangoon, where they gathered around Sule pagoda and nearby city hall."National reconciliation is very important for us... The monks are standing up for the people," proclaimed poet Aung Way. One monk told the Associated Press: "People do not tolerate the military government any longer."

The monks - who have been spearheading the protests - have been handing out pictures of Burmese independence hero Aung San, the deceased father of detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. They are also carrying flags, including some bearing the image of a fighting peacock used by students during the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, witnesses told Reuters news agency. Students were also openly marching yesterday. The junta, which violently repressed the 1988 protests killing some 3,000 people, finally broke its silence over the mounting protests late on Monday, saying that it was ready to "take action" against the monks. It repeated its warning in state media on Tuesday, ordering monks not to get involved in politics and accusing them of allowing themselves to be manipulated by the foreign media.

The Dalai Lama, has given his backing to the monks' call for freedom and democracy.

A paranoid regime unveils its new capital

From the BBC news report on the new capital

The outside world has got its first glimpse of the secret capital Burma is building deep in the jungle according to a report in today’s .

In 2005, the ruling military junta announced that the capital was moving from Rangoon, to an area of malaria-infested jungle 250 miles inland. At the time it was still served by steam trains. Yesterday foreign journalists were finally allowed to see the new city, Naypyidaw, at the annual Armed Forces Day parade. And they also got a rare glimpse of the junta's elusive chief, General Than Shwe, the man who rules the destiny of millions of Burmese.

What they found was a planned city on a large scale. The parade ground where Than Shwe addressed the troops is huge, and overlooked by three 33-foot high statues of the country's most famous kings. According to reports, the city is spread out so that buildings are divided by huge empty spaces.

All the hotels are grouped together in a single area called the "hotel zone". Across an expanse of empty land, apartment blocks are being built for bureaucrats who are being forced to move to the new city, painted in incongruous pastel shades. In the "government zone", ministries are several miles apart from each other. Most bizarre of all is the "military zone", said by reporters who were in the city yesterday to be a fortress. The roads have been made extra wide so they can double as military runways. There are anti-aircraft guns and missile silos. It is in the midst of this security that General Than Shwe lives, now cut off from the rest of the country, as well as the outside world.

Nobody really knows why General Than Shwe decided to move the capital to Naypyidaw. The official version is that Rangoon had become too crowded and congested, but nobody believes that. Some in Burma say the move was prompted by the advice of the general's favourite astrologer. Burma's leader is notoriously superstitious, like the former dictator Ne Win, who had banknotes printed in absurd denominations because he insisted that they all be divisible by his lucky number, nine.

But others have suggested it may have had more to do with a burst of rhetoric against the junta from the US at the time. With the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sounding threatening, the junta may have looked west towards Iraq and decided to plan for the worst. Naypyidaw appears to be purpose-built to be easily defended - and is far harder to attack than coastal Rangoon.

An Indian journalist who managed to get inside Naypyidaw ahead of other foreigners last month, Siddharth Varadarajan, has another theory. The city, he wrote in Himal South Asian magazine, "will not fall to an urban upheaval easily. It has no city centre, no confined public space where even a crowd of several thousand people could make a visual - let alone political - impression. Naypyidaw... is the ultimate insurance against regime change, a masterpiece of urban planning designed to defeat any putative 'colour revolution' - not by tanks and water cannons, but by geometry and cartography."

Looking at Mr Varagajan’s photo’s of the new city Click here to see his photos) , I think he may have hit the nail on the head – a city purpose built to stifle dissent. The new capital is the folly of a brutal and paranoid regime whose acts are sadly largely ignored by the world.

Wikipedia article on the city

More photos from BBC News