Suu Kyi negotiating release conditions
Zoe Daniel reported this story on Saturday, November 13, 2010 08:06:00
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ELIZABETH JACKSON: There's still some hope that Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be released from detention today despite an overnight hold up in proceedings. Amidst building speculation that she'd be released this morning, supporters of Burma's opposition leader gathered overnight outside her home, but they were eventually told to go home themselves.The party has confirmed that their leader has been handed release papers, but now there's speculation now that Aung San Suu Kyi won't agree to the release conditions. The Nobel Laureate has been in detention for 15 of the last 21 years.
I asked our South East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel what Aung San Suu Kyi's supporters were told.
ZOE DANIEL: They were told late last night to go home and essentially come back this morning. They'd been waiting both outside her home and also outside the headquarters of the National League for Democracy, her opposition party, for some hours.
And then a party official came out and told them to go home and come back at 9 o'clock this morning. I've since heard from party officials that the sticking point is that Aung San Suu Kyi could have gone free in fact last night, but is trying to negotiate the conditions on her release.
And this is something that watchers of Burma had always feared; that while the junta might agree to release her that they might make the release so conditional that she might be reluctant to agree to it.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Do you have any ideas Zoe what those conditions are?
ZOE DANIEL: The conditions would be around her physical movement, so whether she can leave the capital Rangoon, which is something that they've tried to restrict in the past when they've released her intermittently over the years.
Also whether she can engage in political activity, and whether she can address political rallies; so whether she can address her supporters en masse. And that's obviously something that the junta would want to prevent because that's a way of her rallying a large group of people who could perhaps form some sort of resistance against them.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Zoe, why are we seeing so much speculation about her release now after such a long period? The junta must believe that Aung San Suu Kyi is in some way useful to them now?
ZOE DANIEL: Look, Burma's an interesting place in the sense that while it's endemic with corruption and it's known for the heavy ruling hand of the military junta, it does attempt to at least, at least maintain a facade of following a rule of law. And in this case, the law of Burma simply says that they simply can't extend her house arrest any further unless there's a specific reason to do so.
Her house arrest officially ends today. As you'd know, it's already been extended once; it was extended for 18 months, when an American man swam uninvited to her house. And they simply haven't been able to find a legal reason to keep her inside. That being said, the one way perhaps of keeping her inside is to make the release so conditional that she can't in good conscience agree to it, because she's made very clear that she won't agree to conditional release.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: That's our South East Asia correspondent Zoe Daniel, speaking a little earlier this morning from Bangkok.
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