LONDON — The government hailed the release of the deputy leader of Aung San Suu Kyi's Myanmar opposition party Saturday and urged the junta to allow all political groups to take part in elections this year.
"I welcome the release of U Tin Oo, who has been under house arrest without charge since 2003," said Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis, after the 83-year-old Tin Oo's current period of detention at his Yangon home expired.
"It is essential that the regime now grant Aung San Suu Kyi's request to meet with the leadership of the National League for Democracy (NLD) so they can function as a political party."
Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, 64, has been in detention for most of the last 20 years since the ruling junta refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in Myanmar's last elections, in 1990.
The junta has promised the polls in 2010 as part of a so-called roadmap to democracy, but no date has been set and critics say the plans are simply designed to entrench the generals' power.
Lewis said that despite Tin Oo's release, "we cannot forget that there remain over 2,100 political prisoners in Burma", as Myanmar is also known.
"Forthcoming elections will have no credibility without the freedom and participation of political leaders of all representative groups," he said.
"A political process which excludes them will do nothing to bring about a sustainable political settlement that could bring peace, stability and prosperity to Burma."
Source :http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iYo65J2dXQC5zqty9aR8kKcBc29Q
Comments
Post a Comment