Burmese in Jamaica call for end to autocracy in Myanmar
Published:Monday | November 15, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Janet Silvera, Senior Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Burmese expatriates in Jamaica want recently released pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to continue her political agenda to free Myanmar from military dictatorship.
Suu Kyi was freed on Saturday after being under house arrest for the last seven years. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who won the general election in Myanmar (formerly called Burma) in 1982, has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years by the military regime.
Her latest release has sparked celebrations across the globe and cautious optimism by her supporters in Jamaica.
"We are fearful whether this is genuine freedom for her. We have witnessed a lot of dirty tricks played by this military regime several occasions before," argued Dr Soe Naung, a Burmese medical doctor who has lived in Jamaica for more than 25 years.
Democratisation in Burma
Not hesitating, Naung has called on the international community "to continue pressuring the military regime to have dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for democratisation in Burma.
"We want all the political prisoners to be released immediately and unconditionally," he said. Under the military dictatorship, some 2,000 people have been placed in prison.
He also feels that the time has come to honour the 1990 election results in his country.
"And we want the international community not to recognise the regime's new 2008 constitution," he added.
The physician also described the most recent election, eight days ago, as a sham.
Like him, one of his countrymen, Dr Kyaw Wynn, who is equally vocal in his denunciation of the junta, said on Saturday that the next step to democracy was a national reconciliation among the large number of Burmese ethnic groups in his homeland.
"Unless this happens, the country will have no genuine democracy," he told The Gleaner.
Suu Kyi essential to change
Wynn describes the woman many Burmese fathers have tagged 'Mother of Burma' as the fulcrum of any thrust to wriggle free of autocracy.
"Everybody accepts her as a leader," he said.
Yesterday, Suu Kyi appeared willing to reach a compromise with the army regime even while balancing the hopes of thousands of supporters who consider her a heroine.
"I am for national reconciliation. I am for dialogue. Whatever authority I have, I will use it to that end ... I hope the people will support me," Suu Kyi told reporters at her party office.
"... If we want to get what we want, we have to do it in the right way; otherwise we will not achieve our goal, however noble or correct it may be," she cautioned.