Myanmar rebels warn of election clashes

BANGKOK, March 22 (UPI) -- A Myanmar ethnic rebel group warned the ruling military that clashes are inevitable in the run-up to a national election this year.

The head of the Karen National Union, the political wing of the Karen National Liberation Army, joined the call by opposition groups to boycott the election, although no Election Day has been set.

Zipporah Sein, head of the KNU, said ethnic minorities shouldn't vote because Myanmar's 2008 constitution doesn't recognize ethnic diversity.

She said the KNLA would fight any attempt by the ruling generals to force local people to either join or form border guard militia that have been set up by the generals in some remote areas.

"They then adopt regime-style policies and tactics toward the local population, committing the same atrocities as the army, such as forced displacement, rape, killing and more," she said.

Sein made her warning during a news conference in Bangkok. She was sitting alongside leaders of other ethnic groups and Myanmar democracy advocates including U Thein Oo, a member of the National League for Democracy political party that operates within Myanmar.

They called on the international community tot not recognize any Myanmar election and for the regime to release all political prisoners, including the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Suu Kyi is leader of the National League for Democracy but she remains under house arrest in Yangon, formerly called Rangoon.

Opposition leaders denounced the junta's recent election rules that exclude people with criminal pasts. Opposition groups say this is a ploy to exclude democracy advocates who have been languishing in jail as political prisoners, such as Suu Kyi, according to a report in the Thailand-based Irrawaddy magazine, which is staffed by many Myanmar exiles.

The electoral laws should serve as "a wake-up call" for people who believed that by calling an election the ruling generals were serious about democracy, said U Thein Oo. He won a seat in the last general election in Myanmar, formerly called Burma. But the results of the 1990 poll were never accepted by the junta, which has maintained power since.

"With more than 2,100 political prisoners in Burma, many activists and politicians will be excluded, though some queries were raised as to whether the law prevents former prisoners from remaining in a political party. We are not clear on that," he said.

Despite the apparent unified front of opposition groups in Bangkok, the KNU's Sein said there won't likely be a similar unified approach within Myanmar.

The KNLA, as have dozens of other ethnic minority rebel groups, has been fighting a central government, some since the 1960s, demanding regional autonomy and a rolling back of what they see as an aggressive and heavy-handed police and military presence.

For nearly 20 years the generals have been sitting down with various rebel groups to hammer out cease-fire agreements, with some going over to the generals.

Last month a reporter with Irrawaddy visited a KNLA encampment high in the remote forested hills near the Thailand-Myanmar border. On a nearby hill was an encampment of the breakaway Democratic Karen Buddhist Army that separated from the KNLA in 1994. Soon after breaking away, it signed a cease-fire with the generals and members of the DKBA have been fighting against the KNLA.

Media reports this week also noted a possible split within Suu Kyi's NLD over whether it should register to take part in the election. By contesting in the election, some senior members said, the party would default on its longstanding demand that the general recognize the 1990 poll, which the NLD won by a landslide.

Source :http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2010/03/22/Myanmar-rebels-warn-of-election-clashes/UPI-21271269253080/

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