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ႏိုင္ငံေရးက ကိုယ္နဲ႕မဆုိုင္ဘူးလို႔ မေျပာပါနဲ႕၊ ႏိုင္ငံေရးက ကိုယ္အေပၚတိုက္ရိုက္သက္ေရာက္လာပါလိမ့္မယ္--ဘယ္လိုလုပ္မလဲဆိုရင္ ျပည္သူ႕အားနဲ႔လုပ္မယ္ --က်မတို႕ကို ျပည္သူက ယံုၾကည္ရင္ ၊ ေထာက္ခံရင္ ၊ လက္တြဲရင္္ က်မအားရွိပါတယ္ --

Sunday, January 27, 2008

EU envoy calls for release of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi

EU envoy calls for release of Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi

The EU's special envoy for Myanmar on Tuesday urged the country's military regime to free democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as he kicked off an Asian tour aimed at pressuring the military government for reform.

"I hope the lady Aung San Suu Kyi can be free as soon as possible," Piero Fassino told reporters after a meeting with Thai Foreign Minister Nitya Pibulsonggram.

Aung San Suu Kyi, a 62-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, has spent 12 of the past 18 years under house arrest in Yangon.

The ruling military government, in an apparent bid to defuse global pressure after its bloody crackdown on protests last September, appointed Labour Minister Aung Kyi in October to handle contacts with the detained opposition leader.

Since then, Aung San Suu Kyi and Aung Kyi met four times, including their last meeting on January 11, but the military government has given no details of their talks.

Fassino, a former Italian justice minister, said he supported the military government's dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi but urged the regime to make concrete progress.

"Now it's necessary to open new phases. I think it's necessary to open real dialogue between the (military government) and the opposition and all different sectors of Myanmar society," he said.

Fassino was appointed the EU special envoy on Myanmar last November and said he would travel to Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Laos and Japan over the next two months in a bid to garner Asian support to press Myanmar for reform.

The Italian diplomat also called on the regime to allow the United Nations special envoy to Myanmar, Ibrahim Gambari, to return to the Southeast Asian country "as soon as possible."

Gambari has visited Myanmar twice since the bloody military crackdown in September on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks, who spearheaded the biggest pro-democracy uprising in nearly 20 years.

The United Nations says at least 31 people were killed during the suppression, and 74 remain missing.

Gambari has asked to return to Myanmar this month but was told by authorities there that they would consider an April visit.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.

(News from Channelnewasia.com-29 Jan 2008)

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Speech


NLD(LA) JAPAN BRANCH

http://www.nldlajpbranch.com/

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

သတင္းလႊာ(၁)

NLD (LA) JAPAN Branch (Nagoya စည္းရံုးေရးေဒသ)
ႏွစ္(၆၀)ဲျပည့္လြတ္လပ္ေရးေန႕တိုက္တြန္းႏိုးေဆာ္ခ်က္။

EU wants UN envoy to visit Myanmar to seek Aung's release

EU wants UN envoy to visit Myanmar to seek Aung's release

BRUSSELS - THE EU's special envoy for Myanmar on Friday called for UN mediator Ibrahim Gambari to be allowed to make another visit as soon as possible, with the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi as a top priority.
'Gambari must be allowed to return to Myanmar as soon as possible with the possibility of obtaining new concrete results,' Italian EU envoy Piero Fassino told reporters after talks with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
'He should concentrate his actions on working for the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi and the main detained political leader'," he said.
The UN Security Council on Thursday bemoaned the slow progress in initiating democratic reforms in Myanmar and also pressed for an early visit to the country by UN mediator Gambari.
The 15 council members said they regretted the 'slow rate of progress' towards objectives they set out last October, a month after Myanmar's military junta crushed the biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years.
Mr Gambari has visited Myanmar twice since the bloody military crackdown in September on peaceful protests led by Buddhist monks.
He has asked to return to Myanmar this month but was told by authorities there that an April visit would be more convenient.
'We think the visit should take place before that,' said Mr Fassino.
He said that if Mr Gambari is allowed to return quickly to Myanmar and in light of any results he achieves there 'we will see what needs to be done' as far as easing EU sanctions is concerned.
'The sanctions are an instrument to obtain the opening of a dialogue not a goal in themselves,' he added, stressing that any move towards a national dialogue and democratic principles would be gradual.
Mr Fassino also stressed the important role to be played by China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) member states in securing change in Myanmar. -- AFP

News from The Straits Times (19 Jan 2008)

Security Council meets to discuss lack of progress in Myanmar

Security Council meets to discuss lack of progress in Myanmar
The Security Council on Thursday deplored the slow progress in initiating democratic reforms in Myanmar and pressed for an early visit to the country by UN mediator Ibrahim Gambari.
After huddling with Gambari, the 15 council members said in a statement that they "regretted the slow rate of progress so far toward" meeting objectives they set out last October, a month after Myanmar's military junta crushed the biggest pro-democracy protests in nearly 20 years.
Underscoring the importance of "further progress" toward the goal of reconciliation between the military regime and the opposition, they noted that "an early visit by Mr. Gambari could help facilitate this."
Gambari, the UN's pointman in efforts to foster reconciliation between the military government and the opposition, said all council members stressed, during closed-door consultation "the need to accelerate progress."
Gambari has visited Myanmar twice since the bloody military crackdown in September.
At least 15 people were killed and 3,000 arrested in the September violence, which sparked global outrage against the regime with the United States and the European Union tightening sanctions against the country's top rulers.
Gambari said he asked to return to Myanmar this month but was told by authorities that an April visit would be more convenient for them.
Gambari said all council members supported an "early visit as a means to engage the government of Myanmar in all areas of concern."
Last October, the Security Council adopted a non-binding statement calling for "the early release of all political prisoners and remaining detainees," including opposition leader and Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters after the meeting that "in order for success to be achieved, we need to increase the pressure" on the military regime.
He stressed the need to "reduce the gap between where things are and where they need to be" in terms of democratic reforms, full respect for human rights, an end to forced labor and to repression of ethnic minorities.
Khalilzad specifically urged countries with influence on Myanmar, such as China, India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to persuade the military regime to cooperate with Gambari.
Last September's crackdown was sparked by protests against a steep rise in fuel prices a month earlier, which rapidly escalated into demonstrations against the military regime which has ruled Myanmar for decades. — AFP
A picture provided by Myanmar News Agency shows Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Ky during a meeting in Yangon, in 2007. The Security Council on Thursday deplored the slow progress in initiating democratic reforms in Myanmar and pressed for an early visit to the country by UN mediator Ibrahim Gambari.
News from TODAYonline.com(18-Jan-2008 02:48 hrs)

UN council upbraids Myanmar for slow reforms

UN council upbraids Myanmar for slow reforms
UNITED NATIONS - THE United Nations Security Council upbraided Myanmar for slow progress on democratic reforms as the world body's special envoy said the junta there was trying to delay his next visit until April.
In a statement on Thursday, the council said Myanmar's military rulers had done too little to meet demands it laid out in October for release of political prisoners and a genuine dialogue with the opposition following a crackdown on protesters.
'Council members ... regretted the slow rate of progress so far towards meeting those objectives,' said the statement, read to media by council president Giadalla Ettalhi of Libya.
'Council members underscored the importance of making further progress,' it said, calling for another visit soon to Myanmar by special UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari, who has sought to wring concessions from the government.
The statement was significant in being agreed to by all 15 council members, including three from Asia - China, Indonesia and Vietnam. Asian countries have been reluctant to take a tough line against Myanmar, a member of the Association of South-east Asian Nations, or Asean.
Professor Gambari, who earlier took part in Security Council consultations on Myanmar, told reporters he was trying to return to Myanmar as soon as possible for his third visit since the crisis erupted but that authorities there wanted a delay.
'I had requested to go there this month,' he said. 'They have sent word that it's not convenient and they will prefer mid-April. Now the (UN) Secretary-General has said that's not acceptable, and I agree, and so we are in the process of negotiating an early rather than a later return to Myanmar.'
Prof Gambari will pay visits this month to China and India, two countries seen as crucial because of their economic clout and trade ties with Myanmar. He said he wanted concrete action and not just verbal support from Myanmar's neighbours.
The UN envoy noted that a senior junta official had met detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi last Friday for the fourth time since last September's crackdown but there was still no sign of real results.
'We don't know what transpired but ... these are still processes, and it's important to translate these discussions into the inauguration of a substantive dialogue that will address the grievances of the people, which are both socio-economic as well as political,' he said.
United States Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Washington believed it was necessary to increase pressure on Myanmar to get results.
That pressure should come from countries with influence on Myanmar, such as China and India, but the Security Council also should take measures, including sanctions, Mr Khalilzad said.
Sanctions are thought to have little chance of approval in the council because of opposition from veto-wielding China. -- REUTERS

News from Straits Times (18 Jan 2008)