A scheduled European Union high-level visit to Burma was cancelled recently after the Burmese ruling junta denied a request from the EU Presidency Council to meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
German ambassador to Burma, Julius Georg Luy, representing the EU presidency currently held by Spain, had on June 15 asked State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Foreign Affairs Minister Nyan Win in Naypyidaw for a meeting with Suu Kyi, the world’s most well-known political prisoner. It was to be part of a high-level EU visit but the junta declined the request, months ahead of its as yet unscheduled elections.
The SPDC is the Burmese ruling junta’s self-styled title.
“I cannot comment whether the meeting’s been cancelled because of [the] SPDC’s refusal to allow access to Aung San Suu Kyi or other reasons,” EU regional delegation spokeswoman Suvi Seppalainen said.
She added that the high-level meeting would not take place during the Spanish presidency of the EU, which ends on Wednesday, but was unable to speculate whether it would be tabled again. She was also without the agenda for the proposed meeting and had no knowledge of what was to be discussed with Suu Kyi.
“I think it’s quite clear why it would be high on their wish list to meet with ‘The Lady’ herself,” she said. “But unfortunately this request was not transferred [sic] by the government.”
The junta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could not be reached for comment.
In response to the junta’s decision to bar EU access to Suu Kyi, the National Council of the Union of Burma (NCUB), a coalition of Burmese pro-democracy groups and political dissidents, released a statement condemning the military regime.
The council’s joint general secretary No.1, Myint Thein of the National League for Democracy (Liberated Area), called upon the EU to reaffirm international demands and denounce the junta’s upcoming election and its results.
“They still don’t have any plans to release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the other political prisoners,” he said of the military regime. “They have refused proposals from all world leaders to release her and have dialogue.”
Myint Thein said the election would neither be free nor fair and that the military had repeatedly refused to take any steps towards changing the political situation in Burma. For those reasons he called on the international community, including the EU, to take a stronger stance against the junta. However the EU is not yet talking about rejecting any election results.
“That would be premature,” Seppalainen said, adding however that the EU was standing its ground. “We’ve been calling for free and fair elections; this has been the EU line for a while and this has not changed.”
Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi remains under house arrest after spending around 15 of the past 21 years held by the Burmese junta in various forms of detention. Her National League for Democracy Party won the last elections in 1990 by a landslide but the junta refused to allow the party to form a government and jailed many NLD members.
The party on May 6 was declared illegal and disbanded by the ruling military junta after the NLD chose not to re-register for upcoming elections under electoral laws it deemed unfair and unjust as they were targetted to exclude anyone serving a prison sentence, automatically excluding the party’s leader and imprisoned members.
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