Aung San Suu Kyi Read Online Free Page B

asserted that it would lead to the democratization of Burma. Their suggestion was, however, a parody of democracy. The military was to be guaranteed 25 percent of the seats in parliament on a permanent basis, and persons who were or had been married to foreigners were not to be permitted to stand as candidates for any political positions. This stipulation was aimed straight at Aung San Suu Kyi, who in 1972 had married Englishman Michael Aris.The constitution did not have the federal stamp that the ethnic minorities in Burma demanded either. They wanted a large degree of self-government, but the junta suggested that several of the most important political spheres should end up under the central government’s control.
    When the referendum results had been counted, the junta asserted in all seriousness that 99 percent of the Burmese had voted and that more than 90 percent had voted in favor of the new constitution. The entire world laughed scornfully, but the generals did not even show a ghost of a smile. Thereafter the junta gave notification that an election was to be held in Burma—or Myanmar, as they call the country. The population was to be given the opportunity of voting for a parliament, yet the generals had rigged the election process in order to be able to retain their power. Aung San Suu Kyi was a threat to their entire carefully worked-out plan. She was just too popular. The junta realized that the election would be out of their hands if she were to be released. That was what had happened on the previous occasion, in 1990, when Aung San Suu Kyi’s NLD won over 80 percent of the seats in parliament.
    For this reason the junta made an issue of Yettaw’s little swim. They accused Aung San Suu Kyi of two things. First, she had broken the house arrest rules by letting John Yettaw into her house, and second, she had broken the law stating that one had to apply for special permission if anyone apart from the family were to spend a night in one’s home.
    The matter was decided in one of the junta’s military courts. The junta wanted at all costs to avoid extensive popular protests so they used a courtroom in the notorious Insein Prison. The room had a filthy stone floor and a roof but no walls. The two judges sat at the front on chairs with two-yard-high ornamented backs. It looked as though each of them was sitting on a royal throne. To the left of them sat Yettaw and his lawyer, and to the right, Aung San Suu Kyi’s lawyers. There was no sign anywhere in the courtroom of a tape recorder, a court secretary, any books, or other indications of what was to take place. Aung San Suu Kyi arrived just before the trial began.
    â€œEveryone says that she has such personal charm that I had really expected to be slightly disappointed,” said the Swedish diplomat Liselott Martynenko Agerlid, who was there to cover the trial. “But when she stepped out onto that cement floor, she was 100 percent charisma.” She talked and laughedwith her lawyers and then she turned to the public. She spoke in a calm, quiet voice, and the audience had to closely gather around her in order to shut out the cackle of hens, the traffic noise from the street, and the patter of rain on the metal roof. She thanked them for coming and asked them to convey her gratitude to their governments. The presence of other countries was important, quite apart from whatever the outcome of the trial might be.
    Both Aung San Suu Kyi and her two domestic servants were sentenced to three years in prison. By direct order of the junta leader, Than Shwe, however, the punishment was lowered to eighteen months’ continued house arrest. Yettaw was sentenced to seven years’ hard labor for, among other things, “illegal swimming.” As a Westerner and an American citizen he did not need to worry, however. He was released after U.S. senator Jim Webb traveled to Rangoon and held negotiations to free him. John Yettaw was able to