Aye Chan Naing, Executive Director of the Democratic Voice of Burma, was in Brussels last April for the One World film festival where Danish film maker Anders Ostergaard had screened Burma VJ. I spoke to Aye afterward and was struck by his resilience and determination in the face of an oppressive military junta. “We now have more reporters in Burma than we did in 2007,” he said.
The crackdown in September of that year was truly astonishing. Thousands of monks came out into the streets and for a few days, the world waited in hopeful anticipation that finally…finally the dictatorship would collapse. Those dreams were swept away along with all the blood spilled in the streets.
So today, it comes as little surprise that Aung San Suu Kyi had been sentenced to serve another 18 months of house arrest. Originally sentenced three years of hard labour, the junta in their gracious wisdom and after a five minute recess decided to commute the sentence. Suu Kyi has already served 14 years in house arrest.
Their motive is simple – to prevent her from campaigning in next year’s election. But this act is in itself revealing. For one, the junta fears Aung San Suu Kyi. They fear what she represents and what she symbolizes. She has within her grasp the power to mobilize an entire people who have since 1964 been suffering under the abuse of a paranoid kleptocracy. Their days are numbered and this latest farce is testimony to their desperation.
