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Daw Suu's Letter from Burma (06/1/9



Mainichi Daily News, Monday, June 1, 1998

UNCOMFORTABLE MIX OF CLIMATE AND POLITICS
"Elected Representatives"

Letter from Burma by Aung San Suu Kyi

	In temperate climes, May is a merry month of darling buds and blossoms.  In
our monsoon land it is an uncomfortable month, searing hot and humid with
the impending rains.  This year the heat in Rangoon has been particularly
hard to bear.  People muttered about El Nino, electricity cuts, water
shortages and rising prices and got hotter and more distressed.  Then a few
days ago, clouds gathered to blot out the brazen sun and delicious cascades
of rain battened down the dust and washed away the heat.  Another rainy
season has come again.  And for the National League for Democracy (NLD),
another anniversary of the general elections that had so raised the hopes of
our people in 1990.
	The position of the members of Parliament elected eight years ago can be
described as a political limbo.  Their names were announced in the state
media as the winning candidates and their election to Parliament recorded in
the Burma Gazette.  Yet Parliament has never been convened and the elected
representatives of the people still await the call to duty.  Eight years is
a long time to wait for a Parliament to be convened.  Some or our
representatives have died, some are languishing in prison, a number have
left Burma to carry the cause of Burma's democracy to other lands.  Of those
who remain here, some have been "persuaded" to discontinue their activities,
others persevere with the struggle.  During the past week, some of these
stalwarts have been detained to prevent them from attending the NLD
Congress, which was held on May 27 to commemorate the eighth anniversary of
the elections.  The authorities seem to be extremely averse to the idea of
elected representatives gathering.  Perhaps it is too uncomfortable a
reminder of their failure to convene Parliament.
	This is not the first time the authorities have tried to sabotage an NLD
party congress.  Such work has become the norm.  Whenever we start preparing
for congress we know the authorities will do their utmost to prevent it from
taking place.  We write to inform the relevant Law and Order Restoration
Council or to use the new jargon, Peace and Development Council, of our plan
to hold a party congress.  Their usual response is that we should limit the
number of those attending the congress to a few hundred, knowing full well
that we had invited about a thousand or more.  Then on the day of the
congress, a knot of people comprising members of the NLD and members of the
security forces would gather at the top of the road to my house and, to use
the most dignified expression, conduct negotiations with regard to entry.
On several occasions those of our people who refused to turn back when
denied admission were forcibly taken away to some distant place such as a
remote cemetery.
	The last party congress, held in September 1997, went more smoothly than
expected after some initial hitches.  But there is no guarantee that the
authorities will be equally moderate this time around.  Will the political
changes that took place in Indonesia over the last few days move them to
take more repressive measures against opposition forces?  It was noticed
that the Burmese media did not carry news of the student demonstrations that
shook Indonesia during these last couple of weeks.  It was only through
foreign radio broadcasts that we knew of what was happening and many Burmese
followed developments avidly, drawing comparisons between the situation in
Indonesia now and the situation in Burma in 1988 when student demonstrations
led to the democratic revolution that resulted in the fall of the Burma
Socialist Programme Party Government.  When President Suharto resigned,
there was a small item in the official Burmese newspapers but there was no
mention of the events that had led to his resignation.
	The world certainly has shrunk to proportions that at times feel a little
uncomfortable.  We cannot ignore the possibility that changes in the
political situation of one country could lead to reactionary measures in
another.  We wait to see.  In the meantime, we continue to grapple with
preparations for our congress.  Will it take place, people queried, as news
came in of nine people taken into custody here, four more there, a few more
over the other place.  We have been through all that before and we cannot
tell how many more times we shall have to go through it all again before we
gain the freedom to participate freely in the political process of our country.
	Regarding the history of the Jews, I was awed by the story of the diaspora,
the repeated exiles and migrations that scattered a people from a small
strip of the Middle East into different countries and civilizations around
the globe.  Elie Weisel wrote in a preface to the autobiography of the
sister of the Dalai Lama that His Holiness had asked him closely how the
Jews had managed to retain their identity through centuries of exile.  It is
a question that interests me as well.  What is the binding force that keeps
alive a sense of belonging to a particular group, the determination to
adhere to the beliefs and principles that set it apart from the others?
Those of us working for democracy in Burma are not a people in exile but we
are a group which has to work to keep alive our faith and goals, to renew
our resolve again and again in the wilderness of political repression.  Our
promised land has not been promised to us by a Supreme Being, only by our
own determination and perseverance.
	The position of the NLD is not an enviable one.  The repression on one side
is matched by the expectations of the people on the other.  As the economic
difficulties of the country increase, they look to use to hasten the
democratization process of the country.  We have to explain to them that
democracy means government of the people, by the people, for the people, so
they also have be involved in the process.  We have always been careful not
to give the impression that democracy could be achieved easily or that once
achieved it would instantly resolve all the problems of the country.  We
have explained that hope has to be accompanied by endeavor.  Nothing that is
worthwhile comes free; there is always a price to pay and sometimes that
price is a high one.
	Although we do not encourage empty hopes built on mere fancies, we need to
have a visions of our nation as it could be if we built a strong foundation
of democratic institutions.  A democratic government means a responsible
government that  must accept it has a duty to cope with any problem that
besets the country.  A responsible government cannot blame inflation on
"axe-handles." (This quaint expression, which the authorities use
interchangeably with "foreign stooges," appears frequently in official
diatribes and on signboards purporting to advertise the desires of the
people of Burma.)  Not can it shrug off the failure to open universities by
laying it at the door of "destructionist elements." A responsible government
has to answer to the people for the ills of the nation.
	Where there is no Parliament and no freedom of the press, how are the
people to ask a government why their needs have not been addressed?  How are
they, in the first place, to indicate their desires, their genuine desires,
not those written up in large letters at street corners?  There has to be a
legitimate way for the people of Burma to give voice to their troubles,
their aspirations, their needs.  Their elected representatives are the
proper channel through which they can make their voice heard.  That is why
the elected representatives of the NLD remain at their posts, braving all
attempts to make them retreat from their responsibilities.