U.N. Doubts Fairness of Election in Myanmar (original) (raw)

Oct. 21, 2010

UNITED NATIONS With just over two weeks until the first elections in Myanmar in 20 years, a United Nations envoy on Thursday questioned the fairness of the vote.

At the same time, the ruling junta, which has shown itself supremely unconcerned by criticism from the world body, pressed ahead with its military-to-civilian government makeover, unveiling a new flag, name and national anthem at a date and time apparently divined by astrologers.

The fate of the long-detained Nobel Peace laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi tends to overshadow any talk of change, and the country’s highest court agreed to hear a final appeal to release her, according to press reports. The generals who run the country annulled the results of the last election, in 1990, when her party triumphed.

Despite the hearing, scheduled for next Friday, speculation on her release has focused on Nov. 13, when her latest term of house arrest is set to expire and the elections will be over. Her absence from the Nov. 7 elections is just one point that Tomás Ojea Quintana, the United Nations human rights envoy for Myanmar, cited in casting doubt on the vote.

“It is clear the process remains deeply flawed,” Mr. Ojea Quintana, an Argentine lawyer, said at a news conference here, noting that freedom of expression and assembly had been further restricted and that more than 2,100 “prisoners of conscience” still languished in prison. Torture is systematic and 144 such prisoners have died in custody since 1988, he said.

“The conditions do not show that these elections will be inclusive, free and fair,” Mr. Ojea Quintana added. “The potential for these elections to bring meaningful change and improvement to the human rights situation in Myanmar remains doubtful.”

Those opposition parties that have agreed to participate complain of harassment and intimidation, Mr. Quintana noted, while some representing ethnic groups have not been approved. Candidates must pay a 500electionfee,aprohibitivesuminacountrywheretheaverageannualincomeis500 election fee, a prohibitive sum in a country where the average annual income is 500electionfee,aprohibitivesuminacountrywheretheaverageannualincomeis459, he said.

Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, has failed in his attempts to engage in any kind of dialogue with the government, which even denied his request to meet with its most famous prisoner during his visit in July 2009. He has repeatedly said that the elections will be neither free nor fair unless Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is released.

The government, whose response to Mr. Ojea Quintana was included in his report, condemned it, denying that there were any political prisoners. Earlier this year the senior officers who make up the cabinet all resigned from the military to join a new party, itself formed by the conversion of an old mass social organization.

The November vote is step five in the government’s seven-point transition to democracy, with the convening of Parliament and the election of a president the last two steps. It is basically expected to be the same government, in suits instead of uniforms.

As part of that process, the government pushed through a new Constitution in 2008 that called for fresh national symbols, which were abruptly announced Thursday with no warning.

The new flag sports horizontal stripes of yellow, green and red with a big white star in the middle, the colors standing for solidarity, peace and tranquillity, as well as courage and decisiveness. Similar colors graced the flag during the Japanese occupation, from 1943 to 1945. The country’s new official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, instead of just the Union of Myanmar, news reports said.

Two hallmarks of the military leaders of Myanmar formerly called Burma since 1962 have been their isolation and a certain reliance on soothsayers and numerology for major decisions. Government officials nationwide were told that the old flag had to be lowered precisely at 3 p.m. on Oct. 21, 2010, press reports noted. The numbers all add up to nine, considered particularly auspicious in Myanmar.

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