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Why is Burma's junta afraid of Suu Kyi? Why is Burma's junta afraid of Suu Kyi?
(about 14 hours later)
Burma's generals have detained Aung San Suu Kyi for 13 of the past 19 years By Jonathan Head BBC News, BangkokBurma's generals have detained Aung San Suu Kyi for 13 of the past 19 years By Jonathan Head BBC News, Bangkok
Last year, as the world tried to persuade Burma's military rulers to allow more foreign help for the victims of Cyclone Nargis, the country's renowned opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi passed a lonely anniversary in the isolation of her lakeside home. The trial of Burma's renowned opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is being held in secret, behind the walls of the country's most notorious jail, the aptly named Insein Prison.
It was five years since she had been detained and placed under house arrest, for the third time. Anyone approaching the prison had to pass through two lines of barbed-wire barricades, manned by armed police. Very few did. Four EU diplomats were refused entry.
And under the law - called the "Law to Safeguard the State Against the Dangers of Those Desiring to Cause Subversive Acts" - the maximum period someone could be held without trial was five years. A small handful of sympathisers were allowed to stage a silent vigil between the two cordons. Her lawyers were instructed not to repeat any of the testimony given in court.
Even under Burma's own draconian penal code, Ms Suu Kyi should have been released. It sounds like the trial of a dangerous, terrorist suspect.
John Yettaw swam across Inya Lake to reach Ms Suu Kyi's house But the defendants are a waif-like 63-year-old woman and her two female companions, accused of nothing more than allowing an uninvited well-wisher, an American, who had swum across the lake to reach her home, to stay until he had recovered from his exhaustion.
It did not happen. The government simply extended her detention for another year, arguing that the first 360 days did not count. Aung San Suu Kyi has spent much of the past two decades under house arrest, the last six years in such severe isolation that she has had almost no opportunity to communicate with the outside world.
So there was no expectation that, as she approached her sixth year of confinement this month, she would be released. Her party, which resoundingly won the last election 19 years ago, has been weakened and divided by almost constant military harassment.
But now the Burmese authorities have been handed another pretext for keeping her locked up. Meanwhile the army, her nemesis, has more than doubled in size, has extended its control into all areas of life and now consumes around 40% of the national budget.
The strange, midnight visit by an American man, John Yettaw, who swam across Inya Lake on 3 May to reach the opposition leader's dilapidated house, has resulted in Ms Suu Kyi and her two assistants being arrested and taken to Insein prison, where they will go on trial next Monday. Powerful figure
Everyone is very angry with this wretched American. He's a fool Kyi WinLawyer for Aung San Suu Kyi So Ms Suu Kyi does not appear to pose much of a threat. Yet even as she has been increasingly isolated, her potency as a symbol of the hunger so many Burmese clearly have for change and an end to military rule seems to have grown.
Like other dissidents who have been tried inside the prison walls, she will get little opportunity to defend herself, and faces a possible prison sentence of five years.
Mr Yettaw's motives for his visit are a mystery. According to Ms Suu Kyi's lawyer, Kyi Win, he tried to visit the same way last year, but was sent away. This time he apparently pleaded exhaustion after his swim, and was allowed to stay for two nights.
"Everyone is very angry with this wretched American," Kyi Win told reporters. "He's a fool."
Government critics have been quick to point out that Mr Yettaw's visit to one of the most closely guarded houses in Rangoon could surely have been prevented by the authorities.
His previous visit last year had already been reported by Ms Suu Kyi. She has now been charged with violating the terms of her house arrest.
Sham election
But why go to such lengths to confine a woman who has already spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention, and has had little opportunity to run her increasingly demoralized and divided party?
Aung San Suu Kyi is being held at the Insein prison in RangoonAung San Suu Kyi is being held at the Insein prison in Rangoon
The answer is an election the military is planning for some time next year, the country's first in two decades. Qualities that have sometimes provoked quiet criticism of her leadership style when she was free, like her aloofness and her stubborn adherence to principle, have made her appear more heroic as a prisoner.
This election has been widely dismissed outside Burma as a sham, because it guarantees to preserve the predominant role of the armed forces in politics and society. Her lonely stand has won her passionate admirers across the world, including, presumably, the hapless American John Yettaw whose misguided attempt to meet her has now got her into such trouble. There is simply no political figure in Burma who can match her crowd-pulling charisma.
But the election matters a great deal to the generals who now rule the country, and in particular to Than Shwe - the ageing, secretive general who still calls most of the shots in Burma. And that worries the military as it prepares the ground for the country's first election in 20 years.
On my own visits to Burma, electoral legitimacy is something I have heard Burmese ministers go on and on about at length. Widely dismissed outside Burma as a sham, because it guarantees to preserve the predominant role of the armed forces in politics and society, this election matters a great deal to Than Shwe, the ageing, secretive general who still calls most of the shots in Burma.
Their beef is the legitimacy Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, claims from its resounding victory in the 1990 election, the last held in Burma. It will allow him to cast off the stain of illegitimacy which has haunted Burma's military rulers for the past two decades and give them a veneer of legitimacy.
This seems to infuriate them, and they go to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit these claims. Legitimacy seems to be a big issue for the generals, as is security. Electoral legitimacy is something I have heard Burmese ministers go on and on about at length during my own visits there.
class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1950505.stm">Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi Their main beef is the legitimacy Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, has always claimed from its 1990 election victory, an election the military later annulled.
This seems to infuriate them, and these ministers go to extraordinary lengths to try to discredit these claims. Legitimacy, it seems, is a big issue for the generals, as is security.
'Than Shwe's succession'
"Next year's election is all about Than Shwe's succession," says Aung Naing Oo, a former student activist now living in exile in Thailand."Next year's election is all about Than Shwe's succession," says Aung Naing Oo, a former student activist now living in exile in Thailand.
"He is obsessed with assuring his security once he steps down... so he is being very careful about who is put in key positions. He has to make sure nothing goes wrong." class="" href="/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/1950505.stm">Profile: Aung San Suu Kyi
Aung San Suu Kyi is still the greatest threat to Than Shwe's plans, because of her unrivalled moral stature among Burmese people. "He is obsessed with assuring his security once he steps down after the election. So he is being very careful about who is put in key positions. He has to make sure nothing goes wrong."
National saviour Than Shwe has not forgotten the last time he released Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, in 2002, in the mistaken belief that Western sanctions would be eased in return.
Critics point out that she sometimes seems out of touch - that she has been unrealistically inflexible in the past over issues like maintaining Western sanctions and the results of the 1990 election. They were not and she was greeted as a national saviour, mobbed by huge crowds as she travelled around the country. A year later, dozens of her supporters had been killed or jailed by military-backed thugs, and she was back under house arrest.
But Than Shwe has not forgotten the last time he released her from house arrest, in 2002, in the mistaken belief that Western sanctions would be eased in return.
They were not, and Aung San Suu Kyi was greeted as a national saviour, mobbed wherever she went by huge crowds.
A year later dozens of her supporters had been killed or jailed, and she was back in detention.
That is why there is a clause in the military-drafted constitution barring anyone "who enjoys the rights and privileges of a foreign citizen" from running for office - Ms Suu Kyi, through her marriage to the late British academic Michael Aris, falls into that category.That is why there is a clause in the military-drafted constitution barring anyone "who enjoys the rights and privileges of a foreign citizen" from running for office - Ms Suu Kyi, through her marriage to the late British academic Michael Aris, falls into that category.
There was never much realistic hope that she would be released before the election. There was never much realistic hope that she would be released before the election. A criminal conviction now would disqualify her from contesting the election even as a candidate. The chances are she will still be in custody when it takes place.
So what about afterwards?So what about afterwards?
Once the generals have in their own view consigned the 1990 election to the history books by holding an election they are more or less guaranteed to win, perhaps then they will have the confidence to release Aung San Suu Kyi. Once the generals have, in their own view, consigned the 1990 election to the history books by holding an election they are more or less guaranteed to win, perhaps then they will have the confidence to release Aung San Suu Kyi.
And perhaps, once Than Shwe, who is 76 and often in poor health, has left the scene, Burma may see a gradual softening of its repressive political climate. And perhaps, once Than Shwe, who is 76 and often in poor health, has left the scene, Burma may see a gradual softening of its repressive political climate. But no-one is counting on it.
But no-one is counting on it.