Legal News

Beyond Rangoon: The Latest Setback for Aung San Suu Kyi

By Ashby Jones

Let’s journey half a world away and catch up on a very strange situation playing out in the southeast Asian country of Myanmar.

It’s in the commercial capital of the country, Yangon (formerly called Rangoon), that Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has been imprisoned (without trial) since 2003. For years, Suu Kyi has been the most prominent opponent of Myanmar’s long-running and oppressive military regime. Under local law, say supporters and her lawyers, Suu Kyi is eligible to be released from prison at the end of the month.

Now come reports, however, that the Myanmar’s government might soon charge her with new crimes, in a bid to keep her imprisoned until after the national elections next year. The latest charge is an odd one. Myanmar authorities on Thursday accused her of allowing a visitor to sneak into her heavily guarded lakeside residence last week. Click here for the WSJ story.

The charges stem from a mysterious incident in which an American man allegedly swam across a lake adjoining Suu Kyi’s compound and secretly entered her home for two days. Myanmar state media identified the man as John William Yettaw, a 53-year-old psychology student from Missouri who was arrested May 6 after swimming away from the residence.

Supporters of Ms. Suu Kyi who obtained reports from her lawyers and others said that Ms. Suu Kyi initially ordered the man — whose motives remain unclear — to leave. But she relented after he said he was tired and needed to rest.

Regardless of what happened, the case greatly complicates efforts to free Suu Kyi in time for elections the government has planned for next year. Suu Kyi’s political organization, the National League for Democracy, won a resounding victory in the last vote in 1990, but Myanmar’s military regime ignored the results, drawing widespread condemnation and sanctions from countries including the U.S. Myanmar authorities have said their new elections are designed to restore democracy, but critics of the regime — which is accused of widespread human rights violations — say they doubt the vote will be fair.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).