World Briefing | Asia
By KEVIN DREW
HONG KONG — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the most high-profile dissident in Myanmar, signaled on Monday that she would be seeking to broaden her audience in her country since being released from house arrest.
Speaking from Myanmar via a live video link to an audience at the University of Hong Kong, she confirmed that she would begin traveling outside of Yangon, the biggest city in Myanmar and its economic capital, a move that may test boundaries imposed on her since her release in November.
In 2003, during a period free from detention, Mrs. Aung San Suu Ky toured the country, drawing increasingly large crowds, and on one trip, a band of men attacked her convoy in what some people believed was an assassination attempt. She was then sent back to house arrest.
On Monday she also urged the international community to reach out to the opposition movement in Myanmar by using modern communications technology.
In the months since her release from house arrest, Mrs. Aung San Suu Ky, recipient of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has used video links and other means to connect with students and activists in Europe and North America.
“We can help each other now — we now have the ability,” she said after being asked how people outside of Myanmar could an engage with her and other pro-democracy activists inside her country.
Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi would not specify when or where she would travel, or even the purpose of her trips. But she pointedly noted on Monday that the government had not provided assurances of her safety and that she had made it clear that she expected the authorities to ensure her security.
“It is the duty of the government to provide assurances,” she said.
Some Burmese dissidents have been hoping that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi would take a more active political role.
Her supporters, while acknowledging the range of opinions within the democracy movement in Myanmar, described her decision to travel around the country as a natural progression.
“She is the leader of the democracy network, and that includes addressing issues such as social welfare, political prisoners, farmers’ rights and civil rights lawyers,” said Aung Din, executive director of the United States Campaign for Burma, a lobbying group. “She is the leader of a broader civil society movement.”
The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962, and the elections in November were advertised as a “road map to democracy.” In March, a civilian government was installed under President Thein Sein, but analysts say little has changed inside Myanmar since the elections.
The new government has done little to end abuses across Myanmar, said Tomás Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar.
Speaking by telephone, Mr. Quintana listed several areas in which the new government failed to make any significant progress, noting land confiscation, forced labor, internal displacement of people, extrajudicial killings and sexual violence against women.
“These problems remain widespread and unaddressed,” said Mr. Quintana, who in May visited Thailand for a week to speak with refugees from Myanmar.
The Myanmar government has refused entry to Mr. Quintana.
He said he was preparing a report to present to the U.N. General Assembly this year.
Likewise, little progress has been made to confront what has been described as rampant corruption of the Myanmar economy.
It has been “a little disappointing,” Sean Turnell, professor of economics at Macquarie University in Sydney, said of the new government’s response to initiating economic reforms. The military remains by far the largest expenditure in Myanmar, at about 25 percent of the budget, he said.
“That is causing all sorts of distortion to the economy, and creating a very serious budget deficit,” he said. “But the government’s response to budget deficits has been to print more money, which has led to the highest rate of inflation in Southeast Asia.”
Mr. Turnell said, for example, that he had expected the government to address the gap between the official exchange and market rates of Myanmar’s currency, the largest such gap in the world. The official exchange rate is 6 kyat to the U.S. dollar, while on the market, a dollar exchanges for 350 kyat, Mr. Turnell said. No action has been taken, he said.
“Economic reform is really going to run up against vested interests,“ he said, pointing to a relatively few number of oligarchs who command most of the business enterprises in Myanmar.
The address on Monday by Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was preceded by a videotaped speech from her. In it, she emphasized the need for education and described people as “learners and nonlearners.”
When asked later how she would describe the military establishment in Myanmar, she said, “I would say they are not very fast learners.”
When asked by a student how she has managed to maintain her conviction in principles, she was blunt: “Discipline. That’s how I managed to live in isolation and keep my faith.”
Under house arrest for 15 of 21 years before her release in November, she spoke on Monday of maintaining simplicity in her daily life.
“I’ve learned to be happy with small things,” she said. “You have to learn to be happy with small things.”
When asked by a female student at Hong Kong University about the role of women in politics in Myanmar, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said many women were playing roles inside her party, the National League for Democracy.
Then she smiled, adding “sometimes I think they are more helpful than men.”
Source: New York Times
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