Open letter to Burma’s London embassy
source : The Nation
Late last month, you issued Myanmar News Bulletin Issue No.5/2000. It contained so many important errors, I feel it necessary to send this letter.
Contrary to what you said, “that the election was not held to transfer power is incorrect.
If you had consulted the election law, which the soldiers in power wrote and promulgated, you would have found that it was called Pyithu Hluttaw Election Law, 31, May l989. In its definitions, it said that Hluttaw means Pyithu Hluttaw. That term was prominently used in the militarywritten constitution of l974.
Article 12 of the l974 fundamental law declared that: “The sovereign powers of the State, legislative, executive and judicial reside in the people, comprising all national races whose strength is based on peasants and workers.In Article 13, it said: The Pyithu Hluttaw, elected by citizens having the right to vote, exercise the sovereign power invested in it by the people . . . Chapter IV sets forth the powers and duties of this body. Had you read this you would not have followed the Slorc fiction about the meaning of the term.
Thus, the authors of the election law and the people knew that they were voting to create a new Pyithu Hluttaw and that, once seated, all power,including control of the military, should be transferred to the legal seat of power.
The language is clear and only after the military saw the size of the NLD victory and its total rejection by the people did it begin to reinterpret the language of the election law so that Slorc did not have to give up power which belonged to the people.
The second error in your report was to say that the process of orderly convening the people’s assembly was disrupted when the political party that won the largest number of seats, the NLD,decided to ignore the primary objective of holding the election.
If you had reviewed the facts, you would have found that the NLD wait¬ed patiently between May 27, when the election was held, and July 27, when the military issued Declaration 1/90 which said in paragraph 19 that the government it put in place on September 18, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, is a military government,one that is governing by martial law”.
On July 28 and 29, the NLD held a caucus and issued the Gandhi Hall Declaration. It said that the party had proposed to the Slorc to hold frank and sincere discussion with good faith and with the object of national reconciliation but received no reply.
At the end of its declaration, it said,in accordance with the wishes of the people, Article 3, Chapter 2,of the Pyithu Hluttaw Election Law, the essence of the democratic system and international procedures, we, the NLD Pyithu Hluttaw members, unan¬imously call on the Slorc on this day to convene the Pyithu Hluttaw.Sadly, this was not done.
In the light of the facts, not the fiction issued by Slorc/SPDC, the NLD did not ignore the orderly process for consultation and transfer of power as called for in the election law, but it was the military rulers who disregarded the outcome of the election they called and supervised. For 60 days they made no effort to hold talks with the leaders of the victorious party and take steps to fulfil the conditions of the election law and transfer power.
Finally, your bulletin reports that when the NLD refused to join in forming an assembly to write a new constitution presumably under the military,some memberselect went underground thus delaying the convening the people's assembly.
That some members of the NLD went underground and even left the country is of no consequence in the light of the fact that it was the military rulers who were in violation of the election law and by their action provoked some individuals to take individual actions.
But that was not the action of the elected party: it did not call for it members to go underground and leave the country. It stood ready then as it has ever since, to begin talks with the Slorc/SPDC, to follow the letter of the law and bring about a peaceful and proper transfer of power.
Finally, you call upon the Western media to correct its description of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, saying that she was never qualified to stand for elected public office in Burma and you cite the l947 constitution which the military violated when it overthrew the elected government in l962 and abrogated in favour of a new fundamental law promulgated in l974.
You specifically say that she was disqualified because “any person married to a foreign citizen or anyone holding allegiance to a foreign power is so.
If you had examined the l947 constitution you would have found that Article 74 sets forth persons who were disqualified from being members of the parliament. Subsection 1 defines this as any person who is under any acknowledgement of allegiance or adherence to a foreign power or is a subject or citizen or entitled to the rights and privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power.
Do you know for a fact that she acknowledge allegiance or adherence to a foreign power?
Do you know for a fact that she is a subject or citizen of a state other than Burma and is entitled to the rights and privileges of a subject or a citizen of a foreign power?
Do you know for a fact that she renounced her Burmese citizenship and chose that of her husband?
I do not think that you can honestly say yes to any of the above questions. Further, you have the words of her husband, published in his introductory essay in her book,Freedom from Fear (l991), that long before their marriage they discussed her feeling that someday she might have to return to Burma:I only ask one thing, that should my people need me, you would help me to do my duty by them.
These are not the words of someone under another’s control. These are the words of a true patriot, who stood ready, long before the hour, to return to her homeland and take up any tasks given to her by the people.
Surely, you must hope that your sons and daughters, wherever they may live, also are ready to return home in response to the call of your people and demonstrate the same kind ofpatriotism that Aung San Suu Kyi had demonstrated for these past 11plus years.
I believe that you owe the people of Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD an apology for toadying to the criminal and illegal government in Burma and acting as its mouthpiece.
Josef Silverstein is professor emeritus of Rutgers University. He is a Burma specialist.