BurmaNet News, July 31, 2009

[Editor]

July 31, 2009 Issue #3766


INSIDE BURMA
AFP: Myanmar delays Suu Kyi verdict to Aug 11: official
Times of London: Suu Kyi selects books for a long spell in prison
Mizzima News: Ministry orders checks on “black listed” tourists

ON THE BORDER
Irrawaddy: Dhaka delegation in Naypyidaw for border talks

BUSINESS / TRADE
Bangkok Post: Salween dam plan draws heavy flak
Irrawaddy: Burmese regime deliberately depresses economy

REGIONAL
DPA: Filipino activists call for immediate release of Suu Kyi

OPINION / OTHER
DVB: With all deliberate delay – Francis Wade
Irrawaddy: Verdict on hold – Aung Zaw
AFP: Myanmar junta keeps 'the Lady' waiting – Danny Kemp

PRESS RELEASE
AAPPB: At least 28 National League for Democracy members arrested




____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

July 31, Agence France Presse
Myanmar delays Suu Kyi verdict to Aug 11: official

A Myanmar court Friday postponed its verdict in the case of democracy icon
Aung San Suu Kyi until August 11, officials and diplomats said, the latest
delay in her internationally condemned trial.

The Nobel peace laureate faces up to five years in jail if convicted on
charges of breaching the terms of her house arrest following an incident
in which an American man swam across a lake to her heavily secured villa
in May.

Critics have accused Myanmar's iron-fisted generals of using the intrusion
to Suu Kyi's house by US national John Yettaw as an excuse to keep the
opposition leader locked up during elections that are due in 2010.

"The court said they have to consider legal problems, that's why they said
they will give the verdict on August 11," her lawyer Nyan Win told AFP
after the brief hearing at Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

"We are not surprised. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was also not surprised," said
Nyan Win, who is also the spokesman for her National League for Democracy.
Daw is a term of respect in the Burmese language.

Diplomats and Myanmar officials also confirmed the delay in the case.

"The reason the judges gave is that they have to review the case again,"
said a foreign diplomat who attended the hearing.

Riot police surrounded the prison on Friday and police trucks patrolled
the city following warnings in the junta-controlled state media that
protests would not be tolerated.

The judges had said earlier this week that they would give their verdict
on Friday following a two-and-a-half-month trial that has unleashed a
storm of international outrage against Myanmar's military regime.

Diplomats from all foreign missions in Yangon were allowed into the trial,
Western diplomatic sources and Myanmar officials said.

Observers and diplomats have widely predicted a guilty verdict but there
has been speculation that the junta might bow slightly to foreign pressure
and give a lesser prison sentence or even return her to house arrest.

Washington, which like the European Union has imposed sanctions against
the Myanmar regime, demanded Suu Kyi's release late Thursday.

"We believe that she should be immediately and unconditionally released,
along with the 2,100 other political prisoners in Burma," State Department
spokesman Ian Kelly said, using Myanmar's former name.

Verdicts had also been expected Friday in the cases of Yettaw and of Khin
Win and Win Ma Ma, two female aides who were living with Suu Kyi at the
lakeside property when the American arrived there in the dead of night.

Yettaw, 53, from Falcon, Missouri, faces charges of abetting Suu Kyi's
breach of security laws, immigration violations and a municipal charge of
illegal swimming. All three also face up to five years in prison.

Myanmar's junta has kept Suu Kyi in detention for nearly 14 of the past 20
years, ever since it refused to recognise her National League for
Democracy's landslide victory in elections in 1990.

State media cautioned her supporters on Thursday against staging any
demonstrations if she is found guilty, with memories still fresh in
Myanmar of massive protests led by Buddhist monks which were crushed by
the junta in 2007.

Yettaw has said that he embarked on his mission to warn Suu Kyi of a
vision that she would be assassinated, dismissing suggestions by the
regime that he was an agent of a foreign power bent on freeing her from
detention.

He was arrested swimming back from her house just days before the most
recent, six-year spell of her house arrest was due to expire.

Lawyers for Suu Kyi have argued that she cannot be held responsible for
Yettaw's actions, and that the legal framework for her initial detention
at her house was under a 1975 law that has been superseded by later
constitutions.

Suu Kyi told the trial that she did not report the American to the
authorities for humanitarian reasons. The junta says she gave food,
shelter and assistance to Yettaw, who has diabetes.

____________________________________

July 31, Times of London
Suu Kyi selects books for a long spell in prison – Richard Lloyd Parry

Rangoon The novels of John le Carré and biographies of Winston Churchill
are among the books that Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese democracy leader
and Nobel Prize winner, is assembling in expectation of a long prison
sentence when a court in Rangoon delivers its verdict today.

Her lawyers say that she has resigned herself to a guilty verdict after
her 2½-month trial for allegedly breaking the terms of her house arrest.
If her fears are realised, she will be confined, not in the large house
where she was formerly detained but in one of Burma's jails, where more
than 2,000 other political prisoners also languish.

"I think Daw [Madam] Aung San Suu Kyi s preparing for the worst," said her
lawyer, Nyan Win, who is also spokesman for her political party, the
National League for Democracy.

Ms Suu Kyi and two of her companions have been on trial since May for
giving shelter to John Yettaw, an eccentric American who swam uninvited to
her lakeside home in central Rangoon. She gave him food and shelter but
prosecutors argued that this violated the rules of the house arrest to
which Ms Suu Kyi has been confined for almost 14 of the past 20 years.

Burma's courts are firmly under the control of the junta and almost never
find in favour of political prisoners.

____________________________________

July 31, Mizzima News
Ministry orders checks on “black listed” tourists – Nem Davies

Tour agencies have been directed by Burma’s Ministry of Hotel and Tourism
to check tourists applying for ‘Arrival Visa’ with the list of people
banned from entering the country.

“The people banned are among those ‘black listed’ and the list is with the
Immigration Department,” Ohn Myint, Deputy Director at Ministry of Hotel
and Tourism in Naypyitaw, told Mizzima.

The notice states that persons included in the ‘black list’ will not be
issued ‘Arrival Visa’. Tour agencies as such are required to submit one of
three forms to the Immigration Department in Rangoon six days in advance,
in order to provide time for checking the list.

A director of a popular tour agency in Rangoon said the screening of
‘Arrival Visa’ is being done mainly to check people involved in politics.

“We have to submit the bio-data of tourists, who apply for ‘Arrival Visa’
to the Immigration Department. They [immigration] mainly check tourist’s
into politics. The “black list” is with them and it is confidential,” the
director told Mizzima.

Though tourists can apply for normal visas at respective Burmese embassies
abroad, it is mandatory for tourists, who face time limits in applying for
normal visas, to connect with tour agencies in Burma to apply for the
‘Arrival Visa’.

“For people, who do not have time to obtain a normal visa, authorities
issue ‘Arrival Visa’ but they need to get in touch with tour companies
before they come. Every tour agent takes care of his guests,” a director
at another tour agency in Rangoon told Mizzima.

The ministry’s order on Thursday states that tour agents can enquire
whether the list of their guests has been cleared by the Immigration
Department. They have no right to question the decision of the Immigration
rejecting a guest.

The order also said that the ‘Arrival Visa’ system has been introduced in
order to make travelling to Burma easier and to provide maximum service to
tourists. It is also to check that tour companies do not charge tourists
extra for their services and prevent the companies from evading tax
payment to the government, which is seven per cent.

“Tour agencies must understand that a country has the right to reject or
welcome particular tourists, without giving any reason,” the order adds.

____________________________________
ON THE BORDER

July 31, Irrawaddy
Dhaka delegation in Naypyidaw for border talks – Lawi Weng

A delegation of Bangladeshi experts on border issues met with Burma’s
foreign minister in Naypyidaw on Friday to discuss an territorial dispute
between the two countries, according to Burma’s state-run media.

The Burmese-language Myanma Alin newspaper reported that talks with the
Dhaka delegation focused on efforts to reach an agreement on disputed
maritime boundaries. The delegation, led by retired commodore Khurshed
Alam, an expert on maritime affairs, arrived in Naypyidaw on July 29.

The meeting comes as rival claims to offshore deposits of natural gas have
raised tensions between the neighboring countries. Earlier this month,
Bangladesh raised the stakes of the conflict when it granted nine offshore
gas blocks in the Bay of Bengal to two foreign oil firms, ConocoPhillips
and Tullow Oil.

Tin Soe, an editor with the Bangladesh-based Kaladan News Network, said
that the Burmese military regime told Dhaka that three of the offshore gas
blocks belong to Burma.

“The delegation has to go Burma because they are worried about a
disagreement with the Burmese government over the offshore exploration
contracts,” he said.

Dhaka has said that it wants to discuss multiple issues with Burma,
including the border dispute and the repatriation of Rohingya refugees. It
has recently sent four delegations to Burma, but has made little progress
on either issue.

In October 2008, the junta’s No 2, Vice Snr-Gen Maung Aye, also visited
Bangladesh to discuss maritime boundaries, trade and economic ties between
the two nations.

After the trip, however, tensions between the two nations grew over the
issue of maritime boundaries, prompting both countries to step up their
military defenses in the Bay of Bengal.

In March of this year, Burma set up a 200-km fence along the border,
claiming that it was to prevent human trafficking of Rohingya people.

There are nearly 30,000 Rohingya refugees from Burma’s Arakan State living
in two makeshift camps in Cox’s Bazar District in Bangladesh, according to
the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Many more are
believed to live outside the camps.

In early July, about 400 crude dwellings belonging to Rohingyas living
near the Kutupalong camp in Cox’s Bazar were destroyed or relocated, and
an estimated 1,000 people were forcibly evicted by Bangladeshi police and
camp management, said the UNHCR.

The Rohingya are a stateless Muslim minority who face severe
discrimination in Burma. Many have fled the country to escape human rights
abuses, including forced labor by the Burmese army. They also face abuses
in Bangladesh. Right groups say that many Rohingya have died while
traveling by boat to Thailand or Malaysia in search of work.

In June, the Burmese regime agreed to allow the Bangladesh government to
repatriate Rohingya refugees. However, Dhaka said it fears the Rohingya
will return if there is no improvement in the human rights situation in
Burma.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

July 31, Bangkok Post
Salween dam plan draws heavy flak – Apinya Wipatayontin

Environmental, social and human rights groups are slamming the adoption of
plans for hydropower dams on the Salween River by Asean energy ministers.

The groups yesterday claimed the dams would cause massive damage to the
river and communities that rely on it, lead to forced relocation and
labour abuses, and would enrich Burma's military junta rather than Burmese
people.

New regional energy plans including cooperation on multi-billion-baht
hydropower development were agreed at the 27th Asean Energy Ministers
Meeting which ended in Mandalay yesterday.

The ministers adopted the Thai-drafted Asean Plan of Action for Energy
Cooperation 2010-1015, which is a guideline for supporting Asean energy
cooperation such as the use of clean coal technologies and nuclear energy
cooperation to generate power.

Thai Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul and representatives from the
Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand reportedly held talks with
Burmese government officials about the development of the Hut Gyi
hydropower dam on the Salween River, which forms part of the Thai-Burmese
border.

The proposed dam is to be built opposite Mae Hong Son province. It will
have an estimated capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts.

International environmental and human rights activists have long opposed
the Hut Gyi dam project, saying it would cause grave damage to the river's
ecology and lead to forced relocation and forced labour among Burmese
ethnic minorities.

Non-government organisations, including the Burma Rivers Network (BRN) and
OilWatch Southeast Asia, issued statements when the energy ministers
meeting began on Tuesday calling for energy development projects in Burma
to be terminated.

Burma's military regime is forging ahead with plans to export more energy
to its neighbours. These include plans for more than 20 large
hydroelectric dams to supply power to Thailand, China and the Asean power
grid, BRN said.

"The revenue from the energy sector is the main source of income for the
Burmese generals. It has been well documented that energy projects have
caused environmental devastation and human rights abuses throughout the
country," it said in a statement.

"Energy projects in Burma should be for the benefit of the Burmese people
and not at their expense," said Sai Khur Hseng of the Ethnic Community
Development Forum.

The Thai government has yet to make a decision on whether to go ahead with
the Hut Gyi dam project pending a recommendation from a committee studying
the impact of the mega-dam. It is due to report next month.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva set up the committee, which is made up of
energy and environmental experts and economists, in April to help him make
a decision on the controversial project.
____________________________________

July 31, Irrawaddy
Burmese regime deliberately depresses economy – Saw Yan Naing

Burma is ranked as one of the world’s most undeveloped countries because
of intentional mismanagement by its own leaders, says a leading regional
activist, Debbie Stothard, the coordinator of the Alternative Asean
Network on Burma (Altsean).

Many developing countries in Southeast Asia such as Malaysia, Singapore
and Thailand lack the abundant natural resources of Burma, Stothard noted.
However, Burma is poorer than each of these neighboring countries.

Many Burma observers say the country has become the poorest country in
region because the military regime lacks any interest in a plan to develop
the economy and to integrate with the international community. One result
is that almost all of Burma’s natural resources are sold to neighboring
countries, say observers.

Stothard and economic specialist Sean Turnell of McQuarie University in
Australia said Burma’s generals have completely lost touch with economic
reality, making the country a “very, very high-risk environment” for
potential foreign investors.

In the past, Burma was at the top of Southeast Asian countries in terms of
economic development and natural resources and had one of the region’s
best education systems, Stothard noted.

“People wanted to go to Burma to study because of its universities,” she
said. “Think about that. But, in a few decades the Burmese regime has
turned the situation completely around.”

Stothard said Burmese people are among the poorest in the world due to the
military government’s policy of preventing the development of a
functioning economy and a professional education system.

“The regime intentionally twists the education system and squeezes the
ordinary people,” she said.

Due to the broken education system, many of the brightest young Burmese
leave the country and many never return.

Stothard noted that many regional businesspeople would not dare to set up
a business in Burma.

“The only companies that dare go into Burma are the ones who are going to
export the natural resources. They just go in, grab the natural resources
and run,” said Stothard.

Turnell said that the regime’s economic policies have done far more damage
to the country’s economic prospects than global economic sanctions, put in
place because of the regime’s anti-democratic policies and human rights
abuses.

“The biggest sanction on Burma is the Burmese regime itself,” said
Turnell, who added that the regime’s “determined mismanagement” of the
country’s economy, including its refusal to respect property rights, is
the main obstacle to Burma’s economic development.

Stothard said, “Singaporean businessmen have told me, those generals don’t
know anything.

They don’t want to know anything. It is not about the generals being
stupid. It is about generals who refuse to listen to the advice of their
own technocrats.”

Burma has been designated one of the world’s least developed countries by
the United Nations for more than 20 years. On a UN Web site, Burma is
described as “a resource-rich country that suffers from government
controls and abject rural poverty.”

A former Burmese intelligence official in exile, Maj Aung Lynn Htut, wrote
in  a recent assessment of the country that the junta’s chief, Snr-Gen
Than Shwe, is adept at using dirty tricks as a result of his background in
psychological warfare.

Aung Lynn Htut wrote, “He [Than Shwe] understands very well that if the
public is allowed to have a better life it will gain a progressive outlook
and become interested in politics.”

In the Human Development Index 2008 Update, Burma’s per capita GDP (US$881
in 2006) was ranked 163rd out of 178 countries in the world.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

July 31, Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Filipino activists call for immediate release of Suu Kyi

Dozens of Filipino activists protested Friday outside the Myanmar embassy
in the Philippine capital and demanded the immediate release of opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The mostly women activists held the protest as they awaited a court
verdict on Suu Kyi on the charge of breaking the terms of her house
arrest. The verdict in Myanmar, which is also known as Burma, was later
postponed for a week and a half.

The protestors wore photos of Suu Kyi and carried a large banner that
read, "A sentence to Aung San Suu Kyi is a sentence to democracy in
Burma."

"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is an icon of the struggle for freedom and democracy
in Burma," the Free Burma Coalition said a statement. "She is the only
hope for change. She must be released because she is not guilty of
anything except fighting for the rights and freedoms of the people of
Burma."

At the end of the protest rally, some activists posed inside a mock prison
cell holding photos of a smiling Suu Kyi.

A Myanmar court on Friday postponed until August 11 its verdict on Suu Kyi
and three others accused of breaking the terms of her house arrest by
allowing a US national to swim to her home-cum-prison on May 3 and stay
uninvited until the night of May 5.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has spent 14 of the past 20 years under
house detention.

If found guilty of breaking the terms of her detention, which officially
ended on May 27, Suu Kyi faces a minimum jail sentence of three years.

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

July 31, Democratic Voice of Burma
With all deliberate delay – Francis Wade

A collective, but all-too familiar, sigh accompanied the announcement this
morning that the verdict in Burma's trial of Aung San Suu Kyi has been
postponed until mid-August.

It is a trial that has twisted and turned over the course of nearly three
months, besieged by delays and digressions from the courtroom and flecked
with the odd concession from the judges. It has successfully shouldered a
visit by the UN Secretary General, brushed off fierce condemnation from
world leaders and trampled over Burma’s own domestic laws.

Given the likelihood of the outcome, the trial could have been wrapped up
in a matter of days. The verdict was likely drawn up the moment John
Yettaw arrived back on the shores of Lake Inya in early May, but instead
the old tactic of delay has reared its head again. Seasoned observers of
the Burmese legal system are used to this sort of behaviour from the junta
– some may see it as a tactical manouvre, while others point to a sadistic
means of further punishing Suu Kyi, with the agony of the unknown still
stretching out before her.

One hopes, however, that the lady who recently passed 5,000 days in
detention is inured to such practices - indeed her lawyer Nyan Win said
this morning that she was “not surprised” by the decision, and reports
have said she is already choosing her reading list for the likely prison
sentence.

But there is another reason for delaying the decision. The junta, in its
desperate attempt to justify why Suu Kyi should be kept out of sight, has
scoured the Burmese political and legal landscape for any pretext that
would add weight to their case. They have spent the last three months
looking for loopholes in their own laws that they can exploit to maintain
the status quo, even if that means doctoring the constitution they
carelessly rushed through last year. That the trial was a sham in the
first place is not disputed; the junta knows that Yettaw’s visit was
beyond Suu Kyi’s control. Indeed the sight of guards merely throwing
stones at Yettaw as he approached the compound shows how far they were
willing to go to deter someone heading towards incriminating Suu Kyi.

But the Burmese regime is fully aware that the eyes of the world are fixed
firmly upon it, and this international attention is far from welcome.
Outcry has reached fever pitch, and the junta now has to look towards
dampening the impact of the final verdict. The US-based legal counsel for
Suu Kyi, Jared Genser, believes that the delay could be “a smart move” by
the government to cushion the blow, and extend the decision until the
middle of August “when a lot of government and UN officials are going to
be on vacation.” In this case, he said, it will remain to be seen whether,
given that August is a slow news month, they’ll actually heighten
expectations by the lack of other news, “or whether in fact they will
succeed in driving this to some extent from the headlines”.

Another factor for the regime to contend with is the tricky question of
what to do with Suu Kyi once the verdict is given. It is perhaps no
coincidence that the house in which she has been kept in detention for 14
of the last 20 years, which she shared with her two caretakers and in
which she was allowed room for meditation and a semblance of normality, is
suddenly the subject of a legal battle over ownership. Suu Kyi’s adopted
cousin, a retired military officer, claims ownership of a portion of the
land, and has put it up for sale.

This follows an attempt by her estranged brother, who has been described
by various Burmese opposition groups as a surrogate of the junta, to claim
half-ownership of the home, with speculation that he would then sell this
to the government. Thus it could be that the decision of Suu Kyi’s verdict
is extended until the dispute is settled, leaving the court ostensibly no
choice but to place her behind bars. In this outcome, the site that has
become almost revered throughout Burma could fall to another vindictive
court decision.

It’s all speculation, but that’s the best we can do at this moment. Who
knows what the reclusive regime is hatching? Only last month there were
rumours that she could be held in a military base outside of Rangoon,
while other people have floated the prospect of a lengthy sentence behind
bars. According to senior National League for Democracy member Win Tin,
the junta’s posturing over the past three months means that the only
conclusion will be a “prison outcome”.

Either way, Suu Kyi is said to be prepared for the worst, and so must we
be. The junta are not concerned with alleviating her agony, which is
excruciatingly protracted and intensified by the delay, but placating
their demons, which leaves her at the mercy of whichever tactic comes
next.

____________________________________

July 31, Irrawaddy
Verdict on hold – Aung Zaw

Did astrologers advise Snr-Gen Than Shwe to postpone the verdict in the
trial of opposition leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi? Or was it
a ploy by Than Shwe, a former psychological warfare officer, to buy more
time? Or did Chinese leaders tell the Burmese to postpone the ruling?

Whatever the reason, the delay is part of the twists and turns of politics
in military-ruled Burma and more drama is likely to follow.

The delay should not be taken as a sign of weakness on the part of the
stubborn military regime, however. It is likely that the regime is just
buying time to deflect both domestic and international pressure.

The postponement of the verdict shows that the regime leaders who are
prepared to impose a prison sentence on Suu Kyi wish to avoid unpleasant
consequences: the outrage from the international community and more
pressure from the West and neighboring countries.

The regime has no control over the sustained international pressure—UN
chief Ban Ki-moon and international leaders appealed for the release of
Suu Kyi and more than 2,100 political prisoners. The US, EU and Asean
nations are keeping to a unified stance: free Aung San Suu Kyi and all
political prisoners.

The domestic factor may also have played a part.

Security has been beefed up in Rangoon and the countryside where small
protests may occur. More riot police are deployed and more military trucks
and police have moved into Rangoon.

The generals don’t want to take risks at this time, and it is perhaps a
smart move to postpone the court decision.

The fact is the case is political: the regime wants to exclude Suu Kyi
from politics and especially from the coming 2010 election.

However, as her supporters say, Suu Kyi is no coward, and she is ready to
face reality in the military-ruled country. Suu Kyi is prepared for the
worst—her lawyers said that she was stockpiling books and medicines.

Though behind bars, Suu Kyi recently commented on the regime’s planned
election. Knowing that Ban had made a high level visit to Burma to discuss
political issues and her release, Suu Kyi’s lawyer said she had one
important message for Ban.

The message is that the UN should be prepared to denounce the upcoming
elections in Burma as illegitimate if the regime does not implement
national reconciliation beforehand.

Her stance on the election alone sends a strong message to the UN and the
international community. She wants the generals to embrace national
reconciliation.

But the generals like to talk tough, as the state-run newspapers testify.
The editorials reflecting the opinion of ruling general Than Shwe and his
hardliners clearly demonstrate their uncompromising stance.

“Myanmar [Burma] is an independent, sovereign county with the rights to
formulate and prescribe appropriate law, and to form a government with
suitable administrative machinery,” The New Light of Myanmar thundered on
Wednesday.

The same newspaper said that Burma has no political prisoners, and it
asked the international community not to interfere in the court ruling,
saying that Burma has its own judicial system.

The paper stated there are “external interferences” in the case, and that
while the Suu Kyi trial is going on in “accord with the law,” no one
should call for the release of political prisoners, including Suu Kyi.

The more they talk tough in The New Light of Myanmar the more it shows the
generals’ level of paranoia.

“Threatening and unnecessarily attempting to influence the trial should be
avoided. Anyone should not be involved [sic] in such acts as favoring the
defendant, favoring the plaintiff and using influence,” it said.

But why did they postpone the verdict?

It shouldn’t come as a surprise if the regime continues to postpone the
verdict in the coming months. The generals are good at buying time and
manipulating domestic and international opinion.
____________________________________

July 31, Agence France Presse
Myanmar junta keeps 'the Lady' waiting – Danny Kemp

During her years in detention Aung San Suu Kyi has got used to the whims
of Myanmar's junta, and the democracy icon again finds herself waiting for
the military regime to make up its mind.

A prison court on Friday postponed its verdict in the Nobel peace
laureate's trial until August 11, further dragging out a two-and-a-half
month case that was originally expected to end within days.

She faces up to five years in jail if convicted of charges relating to an
incident in which a deeply religious American well-wisher swam uninvited
to her lakeside house in May.

But peaceful, patient, even obstinate resistance has been the hallmark of
the campaign to end the power of Myanmar's generals that the now frail
64-year-old launched more than two decades ago.

Suu Kyi appeared in "really good health" and greeted diplomats cheerfully
when she appeared at the court in Yangon's notorious Insein prison on
Friday, her lawyer Nyan Win said.

The softly-spoken defiance of the woman known universally in Myanmar as
"The Lady" has also made her an enduring threat to the military regime,
despite recent questions over her relevance as a new generation of
dissidents emerges.

"The fact that the junta has locked her up shows they still feel
intimidated by her. She is the icon who gives inspiration to the people of
Burma," Sunai Phasuk of New York-based Human Rights Watch told AFP, using
the country's former name.

Suu Kyi has spent nearly 14 of the last 20 years in jail or under house
arrest and critics say the regime wants to keep her in detention for
elections that are due next year.

Much of that time has been at her crumbling lakeside house in Yangon,
where she is kept without telephone or Internet access, with only the
company of two female aides and occasional visits permitted from her
doctor and lawyer.

The daughter of Myanmar's founding father General Aung San, who was
assassinated in 1947, she launched her political career relatively late
after spending much of her life abroad.

A slender woman who wears a signature flower in her hair and prefers
traditional clothing, Suu Kyi studied at Oxford, married a British
academic, had two sons and seemed settled in Britain.

But when she returned to Yangon in 1988 to tend to her ailing mother,
protests erupted against the military that ended later that year in a
brutal crackdown, leaving at least 3,000 dead.

Suu Kyi quickly assumed a leading role in the pro-democracy movement,
giving impassioned speeches to hundreds of thousands of people at Yangon's
famed Shwedagon Pagoda.

In September 1988 she helped found the National League for Democracy
(NLD), an alliance of 105 opposition parties. Alarmed by her fearlessness
and the support she commanded, the generals in 1989 placed her under house
arrest.

Despite being confined to her home, she led the NLD to a landslide victory
in elections the following year, but the junta refused to accept the
result and launched a fresh wave of repression.

Her dedication to non-violence won her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, putting
her beside Nelson Mandela among the world's leading voices against
tyranny.

During a brief moment of freedom, she told AFP in a 1999 interview that
the military struggled to accept the very concept of dialogue.

"They think it is some kind of competition where one side loses and the
other wins, and perhaps they are not so confident they will be able to
win," she said.

But her struggle has taken a heavy toll.

As her husband Michael Aris was in the final stages of a long battle with
cancer, the junta refused him a visa to see his wife. He died in March
1999, not having seen her since 1995.

In recent years her own health has suffered, and she had to be put on an
intravenous drip twice in recent months.

Critics see her resolve as intransigence that has contributed to Myanmar's
stalemate, especially given the emergence of a generation of monks and
dissidents behind mass anti-junta protests in 2007.

But "The Lady" remains the most powerful symbol of freedom in a country
where the army rules with an iron fist.

"The quest for democracy in Burma is the struggle of a people to live
whole, meaningful lives as free and equal members of the world community,"
she wrote in "Freedom from Fear and Other Writings".

____________________________________
PRESS RELEASE

July 31, Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)
At least 28 National League for Democracy members arrested

The verdict in the trial of Noble Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
has been postponed to August 11, 2009. Meanwhile, the Assistance
Association for Political Prisoners (Burma) has learnt that the regime
arrested at least 28 NLD members in the early hours of this morning,
between midnight and 1 am. Two of those arrested were later released. The
reason for their arrest is not clear.

28 NLD members were arrested;

Magwe Division;

1.      (Ko) Myint Lwin                  (Yenangyaung Township, Magwe
Division)
2.      (Ko) Tint Lwin                      (Yenangyaung Township, Magwe
Division)
3.      (Ko) Than Aung                   (Yenangyaung Township, Magwe
Division)
4.      Unknown                               (Yenangyaung Township, Magwe
Division)
5.      (U) Aye Myint                      (Aunglan Township, Magwe Division)
6.      (U) Min Maung                     (Aunglan Township, Magwe Division)
7.      (Ko) Soe                                (Taungdwingyi Township,
Magwe Division)
8.      (Ko) Par Lay                         (Taungdwingyi Township, Magwe
Division)
9.      (Ko) Kyaw Naing                 (Taungdwingyi Township, Magwe
Division)
10. (U) Tha Aung (MP)             (Myothit Township, Magwe Division)
11. (Ma) Zin Ma Ma Tun           (Myothit Township, Magwe Division)
12. (Ko) Than Soe Myint           (Myothit Township, Magwe Division)
13. (U) Pike Ko                           (Pakokku Township, Magwe Divison)
14. (U) Kyaw Nyunt                   (Pakokku Township, Magwe Divison)
15. (U) Tin Myint Aung             (Pakokku Township, Magwe Divison)
16. (U) Thaung Soe                    (Chairparson of Minbu Township,
Magwe Division)
17. (Ko) Nay Myo Kyaw           (Saku Township, Magwe Division)
18. (Ko) Aung Win                     (Pwintbyu Township, Magwe Division)
19. Unknown                               (Pwintbyu Township, Magwe Division)
20. (Ko) Htay Win                      (Kamma Township, Magwe Division)


Rangoon Division;

21. (Ko) Htein Win                     (Dagon Myothit Township, Rangoon)
22.  (Daw) Khin Win Kyi          (Dagon Myothit Township, Rangoon)
23. (Ma) Khin Myat Thu           (Mingaladon Township, Rangoon)
24. (Ko) Nay Lin Kyaw                         (Dawbon Township, Rangoon)
25. (Ko) Nay Lin Soe                 (Tharkayta Township, Rangoon)
26. (Ko) Sai Kyaw Kyaw           (Tamwe Township, Rangoon)


Two NLD members were arrested then later released;

27. (Daw) Naw Ohn Hla                     (North Okkalapa Township, Rangoon)
28. (U) Nyunt Hlaing (MP-Aunglan) (Sanchaung Township, Rangoon)


For media interviews please contact:

Tate Naing, AAPP Secretary +66(0)89-899-7161

Bo Kyi, AAPP Joint-Secretary +66(0)81-324-8935