[Reader-list] Burma's shame

[S. Jabbar]

Aung San Suu Kyi: a sham appeal
It was a foregone conclusion in Burma that the opposition leader would not
be freed ­ but we must keep up the pressure
 
Andrew Heyn
guardian.co.uk,     Tuesday 2 March 2010 18.30 GMT




We heard late last Thursday evening that the Burma's high court would sit
the following morning to deliver its decision on Aung San Suu Kyi's appeal.
Given the global interest in Burma and in Aung San Suu Kyi in particular,
you could have expected the atmosphere in Rangoon to be highly charged on
Friday morning. If her appeal had been upheld, the implications would have
been truly significant. As for Nelson Mandela's release, everyone here would
have remembered where they were the day Aung San Suu Kyi was freed.

The reality, however, was different. It was business as usual on the
streets. There was no extra buzz around the tea shops; no excited
speculation among the local staff in the embassy. Everyone I spoke to before
the hearing knew exactly what the result would be. So there was no tension,
just resignation.

The court building is an impressive, but faded, relic of Burma's colonial
past. Rhubarb and custard painted on the outside, the courtrooms and offices
inside are decorated in a bizarre pistachio green and chocolate colour
scheme. These rooms, with their high ceilings and lazy ceiling fans, look on
to a central courtyard garden. Inside the room allotted to this case today,
the lawyers in their black robes and traditional headgear were engaged in
animated conversation. Anyone who had arrived here with no prior knowledge
of the country would have thought this was a regular legal process where
learned and considered interpretation of the law was at stake. As in
previous sessions, the prosecution and defence lawyers were present, their
desks stacked with law books and papers.

Diplomats representing western countries were also well represented; a
reflection of the intense international interest in the hearing. My mobile
phone vibrated throughout as international news networks placed their
requests for a read out and a quote once proceedings were over. But everyone
knew that we were witnessing a sham process and that the outcome of this
hearing, like those that had gone before it, was known from the moment the
trumped-up charges against Suu Kyi were made last May. And no one knew this
better than Suu Kyi herself. She wasn't in the court today ­ she wasn't
allowed to attend. She remains confined under house arrest at least until
November, the assumption being that this will prevent her from taking part
in the regime's elections.

Proceedings began at around 10.15am. They were over five minutes later. The
appeal was dismissed on the grounds that the central arguments presented by
the defence team concerning the 1974 constitution were irrelevant. And that
was it. After discussions with Suu Kyi's defence team outside the courtroom,
I made my way back to the office, photographed by a battery of special
police photographers (goodness only knows what they do with all the
photographs they have taken of me since I arrived in July). I passed the
small group of local stringers outside the court and launched myself back
into the bustle of daily street life in Rangoon. And, as before, it was as
if nothing significant had happened ­ everyone was pretty sure what the
decision would be and they had been proved right. But in the wider scheme of
things, this was a significant event. It represents another dark day;
another backward step.

So where do we and the Burmese democracy movement go from here? Seen from
here, the answer is that we keep up the pressure unrelentingly. Elections
will be held here later this year. Their credibility will be judged by some
pretty simple benchmarks. For example, will the 2,100 political prisoners,
imprisoned for what they think and what they have written and said, be
allowed to express their views to the electorate? Will their views be given
column inches and airtime in the media alongside the regime's political
representatives? Will Burma's many ethnic groups be brought into an
inclusive dialogue on the future of their country? And on election day
itself, will people be allowed to cast their votes freely and will the count
be conducted properly?

And in the meantime, the legal case rumbles on. Suu Kyi's lawyers can now
make a case, to the so-called "special court", that there are significant
issues of law or fact which have not been properly considered thus far. They
told us this morning they expect to submit their arguments within a month.
If this court agrees that there is a case to answer, a special panel of
three judges will consider their arguments. If so, the next stage is likely
to be in Naypyitaw, the purpose-built capital located about four hours'
drive away from any major population centre in Burma. And that will probably
be the only change. The venue may be different, but the outcome will almost
certainly be the same.

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