NLD Issues List of Demands to Junta
By MIN LWIN
The Irrawaddy News
Burma’s opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), marked the 19th anniversary of its election victory by issuing a statement to the Burmese military government with a list of political demands.
Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Wednesday, party spokesperson Ohn Kyaing confirmed that the NLD had demanded that the junta:
• unconditionally releases all political prisoners, including NLD party leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo;
• sets proper conditions for political dialogue;
• allow the reopening of NLD offices across the country;
• allows free election campaigning;
• accepts the registration of political parties (including ethnic parties) that were banned after they won seats in the 1990 election.
The NLD pointed out in the statement that the Burmese military regime had broken the 1990 election law that required that parliament would be formed of parliamentarians elected in the 1990 national election.
The party further contended that the military government had previously accepted that the national convention would be made up of elected members of parliament (MPs). However, in the 1993 national convention, only 107 members out of 702 representatives at the convention were MPs—just 15.2 percent of the Burmese people’s representatives. The others were hand-picked by the junta.
The five-page statement also claimed that when the military junta reconvened the national convention in 2004, only 13 elected MPs out of 1,086 representatives were invited—a mere one percent of democratically elected representatives.
The NLD, led by detained leader Suu Kyi, won the 1990 national election with a landslide 82 percent of votes, but were never allowed to take office.
Also on Wednesday, the NLD released another statement on behalf of Suu Kyi. Link to that story: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=15746
The NLD marked the 19th anniversary of its election victory at its party headquarters in Rangoon at 12 o’clock noon on Wednesday. The event was attended by party members, MPs, representatives from allied ethnic parties, veteran politicians and Rangoon-based diplomats.
Several dozen members of the pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Arr Shin were stationed around the NLD headquarters in Bahan Township, but no trouble was reported.
“They [USDA and Swan-Arh-Shin] are waiting in three trucks on the street,” said a local resident in Bahan Township, “while plain-clothes policemen are coming and going around the NLD headquarters.”
Meanwhile, Asian and European Union foreign ministers made a joint-statement during a two-day meeting in Hanoi on Tuesday, calling on the Burmese junta to release detained political prisoners, as international pressure mounts on the regime over its trial and detention of Suu Kyi.
In their statement, the foreign ministers called on Burma to prepare for and conduct elections scheduled for next year in a free and fair manner and encouraged the military government to engage all stakeholders in an inclusive process in order to achieve national reconciliation, and economic and social development.
