BANGKOK – The initial euphoria that greeted the freedom granted to nearly 4,000 prisoners, recently released from jails in military-ruled Burma, seems to be dissipating fast. For all it may be, this amnesty might not necessarily translate into possible political reform.
The profile of most prisoners freed, the timing of their release, and the reasons being offered by Rangoon’s junta have fed this assessment. And this undermines any hope the military rulers may have had of profiting from this goodwill gesture.
For one, only between 20 to 28 of the 3,937 prisoners granted freedom on Nov. 18 were jailed for their political activities. The majority were thrown behind bars by the oppressive regime due to alleged crimes, including theft.
Currently, Burma has close to 1,400 political prisoners held in harsh conditions within the 39 prisons spread across this Southeast Asian country. They include parliamentarians, writers, pro-democracy activists, and Buddhist monks. Among them is Win Tin, a close aide of Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in jail since 1989 for his political beliefs.
"The release of the prisoners suggests nothing other than an effort to please the international community," Bo Kyi, a former political prisoner, told IPS. "Most of the prisoners had finished their terms, so they were not being released for special reasons."
According to Bo Kyi, who also heads the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners in Burma, a group based in the northern Thai town of Mae Sot, the junta is still committed to jailing citizens who challenge its political view.
"Last week they arrested three members of the NLD," he said, referring to the National League for Democracy, the political party headed by Suu Kyi that won a landslide victory at the 1990 elections but was denied power by the junta. Suu Kyi, herself, is currently under house arrest.
This mass prisoner release is nothing new in military-ruled Burma.
The country’s hardline military leader, Senior General Than Shwe, had sought to woo the international community with similar ploys before.
In 2001, the release of nearly 200 political prisoners from jails such as the notorious Insein, in Rangoon, was typical. It happened when the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), as the junta is officially known, was under fire from the international community. Then, too, the prisoners released had served their full sentence, and were not freed by a special amnesty.
Now, three years later, Burma’s strongman is facing a more formidable array of critics on the international stage. It follows the sacking of Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt from his prime minister’s post on Oct. 19. Khin Nyunt, who is under house arrest, was appointed premier last year and soon convinced some Burma watchers that he was a moderate keen on pushing ahead with political reform.
His successor, Lt. Gen. Soe Win, is regarded as a military hardliner and has been named by Burmese political exiles in Thailand as having been the primary figure behind an attack led by thugs, linked to the junta, on Suu Kyi and her NLD supporters in May last year.
Besides the usual critics like the U.S. government, Britain, and other European Union countries, Burma finds itself feeling the heat from regional allies who together with it are in an economic bloc of Southeast Asian nations.
On another front, a body of regional parliamentarians led by a bipartisan group from the Malaysian legislature is also exerting pressure on the regime.
In addition, the International Labor Organization (ILO) added its voice this month to the growing number of UN bodies and officials losing patience with Rangoon’s lack of political reform. The Geneva-based labor agency, in fact, has threatened to consider imposing sanctions against Burma for its continued use of forced labor
"If the SPDC is sincere about reform, it should start by releasing all political prisoners," Soe Aung, foreign affairs spokesman for the National Council of the Union of Burma, a group of Burmese political exiles, told IPS. "Then it must start talks for the restoration of democracy with the NLD and other ethnic political parties."
Burma watchers also feel that the SPDC is gaining little sympathy by blaming Khin Nyunt and the military intelligence division that he headed for much of the country’s political troubles. Last week, for instance, Rangoon accused Khin Nyut’s intelligence network for imprisoning the nearly 4,000 people who were given amnesty last week.
"Khin Nyunt was part of the problem, but Than Shwe cannot get away making him a scapegoat because all levels of the military regime have oppressed the people," added Soe Aung.
Burma has been under the jackboot of the generals since a military coup in 1962. In 1988, students led the way toward a democratic uprising, which was brutally crushed by the junta, with over 3,000 pro-democracy protesters killed.
One of the famous student leaders in that mass uprising, Min Ko Naing, was arrested in March 1989. He was among the 4,000 released last week after enduring over 15 years of solitary confinement.
During his incarceration, the 42-year-old Min Ko Naing became known as Burma’s second most well-known political prisoner after Suu Kyi.
"His release cannot be ignored since he is well respected and has the potential to reorganize," Beejoy Sen of the Burma Lawyers Council told IPS. "Than Shwe can use it to his advantage against his critics. But he will have to do more to win sympathy, like making the release a process toward political change."
