The Most Influential Burmese Dissidents Not Yet Released

The Most Influential Burmese Dissidents Not Yet Released
By BA KAUNG Wednesday, October 12, 2011


Although some prominent political prisoners were released on Wednesday morning under an amnesty granted by Burma’s President Thein Sein to over 6,000 prisoners, the country’s most influential imprisoned dissidents, the leaders of the 88 Generation Students group, were not reported to be among them.

The government released Zarganar, the famous dissident comedian, and Shan ethnic leader Sao Hso Ten, who was serving a 106-year sentence. But influential 88 Generation Students group leaders such as Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, who are both serving 65-year jail terms in remote prisons in Shan State, were not included in the political prisoners released thus far.

Around 2,000 political prisoners are currently incarcerated in Burma, but only about 100 were reported to have been released by mid-Wednesday afternoon, according to Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

“We are grateful for the release of even one political prisoner, but I heard only around a hundred prisoners are released until now,” she said at a gathering with former political prisoners in Rangoon this morning. Although welcoming the news that some political prisoners had been released, she called on the government to release those remaining behind bars as well.

The middle-aged 88 Generation Students group leaders played a key role in Burma's 1988 anti-government uprising. They were arrested after leading a protest march against an increase in fuel prices just prior to the mass protests led by Buddhist monks in the 2007 uprising known as the Saffron Revolution, and they still wield heavy influence among the public and political opposition.

Min Ko Naing’s sister, Kyi Kyi Nyunt, told the Associated Press that her brother said he was not on the list of political prisoners to be set free.

“We are used to these ups and downs,” she said.

Kyaw Khin, a prison official from Burma's most infamous Insein Prison in Rangoon, said that 642 prisoners are being released from the prison today and only seven of them are political detainees.

The exact number of political prisoners who will be among the more than 6,000 prisoners that the government announced it will release has not been reported or officially announced.

Win Tin, a leading senior member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy who spent 19 years in jail as a political prisoner, said that he strongly disapproves of the way the government is releasing political prisoners on par with ordinary convicts.

In an interview with The Irrawaddy following his release from Myitkyina Prison in the north of Burma, Zarganar said that he didn’t know he would be freed until Wednesday morning and feels sad because his fellow political prisoners are still in jail.

“Until late last night, I wanted to believe in the positive changes that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has spoken about,” said Zarganar. “But this morning, I lost belief in them because I saw that the government does not have a true desire to release all political prisoners.”

He said that despite the election last year in which a small number of opposition parties won a handful of seats in Parliament, Burma has a “mono-party” democracy rather than a multi-party democracy.

"The current system is not real democracy, so I will continue to work both as an entertainer and in the political arena," he said. “For me, they are interrelated.”