Daw Suu's Letter from Burma #37

[carol@xxxxxxx]

Mainichi Daily News, Monday, August 19, 1996

SLORC FIGHTS DEMOCRACY WITH CRUELTY, BARBARISM:
Death in Custody (1)

Letter from Burma (No. 37) by Aung San Suu Kyi

	On Aug. 2, U Hla Than, an NLD member of Parliament elected in 1990, died in
the Rangoon General Hospital as a political prisoner of the SLORC (State Law
and Order Restoration Council).
	His constituency, the Coco Islands, is the smallest in the country but one
of the best known.  The chief of this small group of islands which lie in
the Indian Ocean became notorious as a penal settlement for political
prisoners after the first military coup of 1958.  It was a place where every
aspect pleased, vast stretches of ocean, sapphire skies, sandy beaches,
graceful swaying palms, and only man seeking to crush and humiliate his
fellow man was vile.
	The penal settlement was dismantled in the late 1960s and there remained on
the island a naval outpost, a skeleton administration and several families
who were largely engaged in work connected with the coconut industry.  The
total population in 1990 was a little over 1,000.
	U Hla Than and four other members of the NLD set out for Greater Coco
Island on May 4, 1990, 23 days before the elections were scheduled to take
place.  There they established their headquarters in a small wood and bamboo
bungalow and went to walk with the will to win support for their cause.
	House to house canvassing was not permitted, there were strict regulations
regarding the distribution of pamphlets and after U Hla Than had visited the
home of a school teacher a couple of times, he was asked to sign an
undertaking not to make any more visits to the house of any civil servant.
He refused, explaining that he had merely been paying social calls, not
engaging in any electioneering work.
	Despite the restrictions, the intrepid five carried on with their mission
to convey their message of democracy to the people of the islands long cut
adrift from political developments on the mainland.
	Although the monsoons had already begun, the morning of May 27 dawned
sunny.  Nearly 450 of the 613 people on the island above the age of 18 cast
their votes in the two polling stations to choose between U Hla Than and the
candidate of the National Union Party, the erstwhile Burma Socialist Program
Party which had ruled the country for 26 years.  Voting ended around 4
o'clock in the afternoon and the counting of votes was completed by 7:30 in
the evening.
	The NLD candidate won with 56.94 percent of the eligible votes.  What took
place on Coco Island might have been described as a mini-election but the
achievement of U Hla Than and his team was a major one.  When they got back
to Rangoon they were given a well-deserved heroes' welcome by colleagues and
supporters.
	At the time he was elected as a member of Parliament, U Hla Than was 45
years old.  He was born to a family of peasant farmers and completed his
secondary school education in Moulmein. At the age of 20, he entered the
navy.  A young man of grit and industry who believed in the value of
education, he continued with his studies during his years of service and
passed the matriculation examination in 1975.  He retired from the navy in
1977 and went on to study law.  In 1980 he gained an LL.B. degree from the
University of Rangoon.
	U Hla Than took an active part in the democracy movement of 1988 as member
of the Rangoon Lawyers Association.  Later he joined the NLD and became the
party committee chairman of one of the important townships of the Rangoon
Division.  When preparations for the elections began, he offered to stand as
the party candidate in the Coco Islands, a constituency that aroused little
enthusiasm.  His offer was gratefully accepted.
	The official announcements of the results of the elections were dragged out
over weeks but it was widely known with in a matter of days that the NLD had
won a spectacular victory.  The country was in a jubilant mood, proud of the
outcome of the first democratic elections in three decades, full of hope for
the future, confident that at last there would be a government which would
be transparent and accountable and which would gain trust and respect both
at home and abroad.
	Few in Burma suspected then that they were going to be the victims of one
of the most blatant acts of deceit practiced on any people.  Few realized
then that the fair promises of a democratic transfer of power were worth
less than the withered palm leaves drifting off the shores of the Coco Islands.
	It was some two months after the elections when SLORC still showed no signs
of relinquishing power, or of convening Parliament, that a climate of unease
began to set in.  And when U Kyi Maung and other key members of the NLD were
taken into custody in September, the unease turned into dismay and
disillusionment.  The next month, a number of members of Parliament,
including U Hla Than, were arrested.  In April 1991 U Hla Than was tried by
a martial law court, accused of complicity in attempts to set up a parallel
government, and sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for high treason.  Now,
five years later, he is dead, the victim of a warped process of law and a
barbaric penal system.

(This article is one of a yearlong series of letters.  The Japanese
translation appears in the Mainichi Shimbun the same day, or the previous
day in some areas.)