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Abdullah should give a clear message to Myanmese military junta in his visit to Yangon tomorrow to stop its 16-year “cat and mouse game” with Aung San Suu Kyi, ASEAN and the international community and to immediately release the Burmese Opposition Leader and all political prisoners to embark on democratization and national reconciliationMedia Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should send a clear message to the Myanmese military junta in his visit to Yangon tomorrow to stop its 16-year “cat-and-mouse game” with Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, ASEAN and the international community and to immediately release the Burmese Opposition Leader and all political prisoners to embark on meaningful and substantive democratization and national reconciliation. For over a decade, the Myanmese military junta had blown hot-and-cold, partly in response to regional or international pressures, subjecting Aung San Suu Kyi under various bouts of arrests, house arrests and releases but the bottom-line is that there has been no meaningful or substantive progress in democratization and national reconciliation with the Myanmese regime continue to remain the pariah of the international community. Recently, the Myanmese military junta is again making placatory noises for regional and international consumption, with the Thai Foreign Minister Sukariart Sathirathai collaborating the statement of the Myanmese Foreign Minister Win Aung that Aung San Suu Kyi would be released from house arrest before the holding of a national convention - the first step of the military junta’s “seven-point road map” to democracy. Abdullah should impress on the military junta not only the need for Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy and the ethnic minorities to be fully involved in every step of the “road map” to democracy, he should also ask for her immediate release and to meet Aung San Suu Kyi in his visit to Myanmar tomorrow.
* Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman |