Myanmar’s military junta announces partial pardon for Aung San Suu Kyi

Myanmar’s military junta has lowered five of the 19 sentences against Aung San Suu Kyi, the democratic leader detained since the 2021 coup, state media reported on Tuesday. A source from the Government of National Unity, a shadow administration opposed to the military regime, has confirmed to EL PAÍS that, after the pardon, Suu Kyi will see her sentence reduced from 33 to 21 years in prison and that, for now, she will continue in prison. house arrest. The partial pardon of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner took place within the framework of an amnesty decreed by the military authorities in favor of more than 7,000 prisoners on the occasion of the Buddhist Lent. Win Myint, president of the government deposed in the coup, has also been pardoned.

The Lady, as Suu Kyi is also known, had been convicted of almost twenty crimes, including corruption, accepting bribes, violating anti-covid protocols, violating the official secrets law, inciting protests and abusing their position. International analysts and human rights organizations affirm that the charges against the politician are nothing more than a farce so that she remains in prison indefinitely.

Suu Kyi, 78, was arbitrarily detained and placed under house arrest immediately after the riot. More than a year later, the coup junta transferred her from an unknown location to the Naypyidaw Detention Center, where she built a special room for herself to hold her trials. Last week, the BBC’s Burmese-language service quoted a “source close to the prison” as saying she had been moved to a house regularly used by government officials.

Myanmar has been in political, economic and social chaos since the Tatmadaw carried out a coup on February 1, 2021, ending attempts at a democratic transition that began a decade earlier. The resistance movement continues to fight against the military on multiple fronts, after two and a half years of strong and bloody repression of opponents of the regime. The Army justifies the coup for the alleged electoral fraud during the 2020 elections, in which the National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi’s party, swept, as it already happened in the 2015 general elections.

The Burmese military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, promised in 2021 that “free, fair and multiparty elections” would be held when the state of emergency ended, which was originally supposed to last until August 2023. However, yesterday he announced the extension of this special period for another six months, arguing that the vote should be postponed due to increased violence in the streets.

“During the elections, in order for them to be free and fair and to be able to vote without any fear, the necessary security conditions must be met and, therefore, it is necessary to extend the state of emergency,” reads the statement issued by the board. on state television. After hearing the news, a spokesman for the United Nations Secretary General demanded “a return to a democratic regime in Myanmar as soon as possible.”

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