http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/06/AR2010050606171.html
By Special to The
Friday, May 7, 2010; A16
NLD party officials, interviewed by telephone, said they could not be part of an election that denied the victory they have fought for two decades to claim. Many said participating would make them look like "puppets" of the brutal military regime that has turned
Amid uncertainty about the junta's next moves, about 100 people gathered for a final meeting Friday in the NLD's closely monitored Rangoon headquarters. Party leaders described an emotional gathering to lament the passing of a party that has fought for 20 years against the junta's decision to grab power rather than let Suu Kyi's party govern after the 1990 balloting.
They said that despite the formal dissolution of the party, members resolved not to take down their red signposts, shutter the headquarters or pack up their "fighting peacock" flag, the familiar trappings of a movement that has come to represent their internationally recognized cause.
"There were more people than ever in our headquarters, old ones and young ones. And some old ladies and old men are shedding their tears," said U Win Tin, 81, a senior leader of the NLD and the chief strategist of the party since his release last year after 19 years in prison. "They are heartbroken because of the end of 20 years."
In previous weeks and months, NLD members had struggled to decide whether to boycott the upcoming vote, which has not been scheduled, and face irrelevance as a political movement, or to re-register under laws they considered unfair.
"We cannot participate in the election because it is unfair," said U Nyan Win, an NLD spokesman and the only person permitted direct communication with Suu Kyi in the lakeside compound where she has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest. "If we win, we are the puppets of the military regime."
Perhaps most pointedly, the new law bans anyone with a criminal conviction from running. This would have meant expelling both Suu Kyi and key activists who have for years languished in and out of jail.
Suu Kyi, 64, has become an international symbol of the struggle for democracy and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. In what international observers decried as a sham trial, she was convicted last year of violating the terms of her home detention after a
While many outside analysts see the election laws as the junta's deliberate attempt to target and destroy the NLD, some within the party said they felt that they had a responsibility to their 1990 constituents as the lone bulwark of viable democratic opposition in a country that has suffered 48 years of successive military rulers, and that still ranks among the world's most repressive.
"Somehow or other we have the duty to continue if we are devoted to our political dignity," said U Khin Maung Swe, an elected member of parliament who spent 16 years in prison and in recent months was a vocal advocate of registering for the elections.
Win Tin also said that the party would continue its struggle.
"We won't be quiet, we won't be sitting in our houses," he said. "We will find our way."
© 2010 The Washington Post Company
Vanunu Returns to Prison and The End of
On May 11, 2010, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that Mordechai Vanunu, will “serve a three-month jail sentence handed to him by Jerusalem District Court and not community service.” [1]
The ‘justices’ refused Vanunu’s offer to do community service in occupied east
On April 30, 2007, the
On July 2, 2007,
On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu’s sentence to three months, "In light of (Vanunu’s) ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions put the country’s security in jeopardy." [2]
On December 21, 2009, Uzi Eilam, an Israeli scientist, Tel Aviv University chemistry professor, former worker at Israel's Dimona reactor, former member of Israeli parliament, and the former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission told PRESS TV that Vanunu "served the regime because his revelations helped Tel Aviv intimidate others...I've always believed he should be let go. I don't think he has significant knowledge to reveal (about Dimona) now.”
On May 10, 2010, Uzi Even, spoke on Israeli army radio...
http://wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1723&Itemid=233
Only in Solidarity do "we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine
Eileen Fleming,
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
A Feature Correspondent for Arabisto.com
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu"
http://www.youtube.com/user/eileenfleming
No comments:
Post a Comment