Win Tin’s plea on the Lady’s birthday

In yesterday’s Independent, U Win Tin made a passionate appeal to the West to use their freedom to help his country achieve the same.

In a hand-written letter smuggled out of Burma and passed to the paper he wrote "I want to repeat and echo her own (Aung San Suu Kyi) words – 'please use your liberty to promote ours'. I want to add more to it. Please bring more and more liberty to us, to our country, Burma. We are starving for it and we are waiting for someone or some institutions or some countries to bring it to us."

The plea from Ms Suu Kyi's friend and senior political ally, who himself spent almost 20 years in solitary confinement, comes at a desperately difficult time for the opponents of Burma's military junta. Her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), has been forced to shut down after it decided it could not participate in an election due later this year when she and more than 2,000 political prisoners remain behind bars. Ae a breakaway group of supporters has decided to contest the polls, most independent analysts believe the election will simply further cement the junta's position.
The junta has claimed the elections due to be held this year will mark a crucial staging point in Burma's journey to full democracy. It is a claim that has been met with derision by most independent observers.
Just yesterday, The Elders, a group of global leaders called together by Nelson Mandela, used the occasion of Ms Suu Kyi's birthday to denounce the planned election. "National processes in Burma have been usurped by the military government – they do not serve the people. The elections due later this year will not be any different," said Desmond Tutu, chairman of the group.

Despite the junta's efforts to isolate her, experts say Ms Suu Kyi remains the sole person who could perhaps unite Burma. "She remains a powerful icon and, if she were free and there were free presidential elections tomorrow, there's no doubt in my mind that she would win," said author Bertil Lintner.

Even at the age of 65, the woman inside carries with her a rare, special power that the generals still fear. Here’s hoping it won’t be for long and the junta lie in unmarked graves, despised forever.

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.