Myanmar's Suu Kyi Is Detained 18 More Months

By a WALL STREET JOURNAL Staff Reporter

Pro-democracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi was sentenced to spend 18 more months under house arrest after a Myanmar court found her guilty of violating the terms of her detention in May.

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Take a look at major events in the life of famed dissident Aung San Suu Kyi.

Tuesday's verdict means Myanmar's military junta will be able to keep the 64-year-old Nobel laureate -- who has already spent 14 of the past 20 years as a prisoner -- out of sight until after it wraps up a controversial election planned for next year.

It also complicates decisions for foreign governments, including the U.S., that have been trying to bring about change in Myanmar for years and that until recently were weighing options to soften their approach toward the country's harsh military regime.

Condemnation of the verdict came swiftly, with some foreign leaders and dissidents calling for a new round of punitive measures, including steps by the United Nations Security Council to publicly sanction Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "strongly deplores" Myanmar's action and urged the ruling generals "to immediately and unconditionally release" Ms. Suu Kyi, the Associated Press quoted his office as saying. It also said he was "deeply disappointed by the verdict." The AP said the Security Council, at France's request, planned to meet Tuesday afternoon.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, at a news conference in Congo, said of Ms. Suu Kyi: "She should not have been tried. She should not have been convicted. We continue to call for her release."

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Ms. Suu Kyi's trial has been condemned around the world.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Myanmar's leaders are "determined to act with total disregard" for international law, while the European Union promised to reinforce its sanctions against Myanmar.

Human Rights Watch, a New York-based group, called the verdict "a reprehensible abuse of power." The U.S. Campaign for Burma, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group, urged a global arms embargo against Myanmar and an investigation into crimes against humanity in the country.

The verdict "should really make it clear that it's game over. ... [The junta leaders] have no intention of bringing changes about in their country," said Jeremy Woodrum, a spokesman for the group.

A group of 14 Nobel laureates wrote to the U.N. Security Council, saying that body must hold Myanmar's leadership "accountable for its crimes" and investigate "the full extent of its brutality."

The Yangon court sentenced Ms. Suu Kyi to three years in prison for allowing an American well-wisher to visit her home in May without notifying state authorities. But in a move apparently intended to appease the country's many international critics, Senior General Than Shwe ordered the court to cut the sentence in half and allow her to serve it at home.

Gen. Than Shwe said in a statement that he made the decision to "maintain peace and tranquility"' and because Ms. Suu Kyi was the daughter of Aung San, a national hero who helped win the country's independence from Britain, the Associated Press reported.

Singapore, a fellow member with Myanmar in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said it was "disappointed" with the conviction and sentence, but added, "We are, however, happy that the Myanmar government has exercised its sovereign prerogative to grant amnesty for half her sentence and that she will be placed under house arrest rather than imprisoned."

The Yangon court also convicted John Yettaw, the 53-year-old Missouri resident who triggered the case after he swam across a Yangon lake to reach Ms. Suu Kyi's residence, uninvited, on May 4. He later told officials he had had a dream she might be assassinated and wanted to warn her.

Mr. Yettaw was declared guilty of breaching conditions of Ms. Suu Kyi's house arrest as well as immigration rules. The court sentenced him to up to seven years imprisonment, including four with hard labor, though some analysts said they believe the government might soon deport the American.

The regime also convicted two aides that live with Ms. Suu Kyi, sentencing each for 18 months.

There were no immediate reports of serious unrest in Yangon, the country's commercial capital, which is tightly monitored by military authorities. Still, dissatisfaction with the decision was widespread, including among some elites who ordinarily would be expected to side with the junta.

Residents said that security measures had been stepped up across the city, with police trucks patrolling the streets, and plainclothes officers believed to be monitoring Internet cafes where young dissidents often gather.

"The court proceedings were just a sham," said a 42-year-old lawyer who works in Yangon. "From the beginning, she was predestined" to lose.

A retired army major sitting in a teahouse said, "I had already expected this kind of ruling. Justice has been raped by the generals."

The need to bring about some kind of regime change in Myanmar -- or at least reach some kind of diplomatic breakthrough with the junta -- is growing, dissidents say. Economic and social conditions have deteriorated significantly in the country in recent years, despite the fact that the government's financial strength has increased, largely due to surging trade in natural gas and other resources with China, Thailand and other Asian neighbors.

There is also growing concern that Myanmar's junta may be developing more-advanced weapons systems, possibly with help from North Korea, with a goal of gaining more control over its population and increasing its leverage in discussions with the West.

Several Myanmar citizens, some of them expatriates, have claimed direct knowledge of a nuclear-weapons program involving a reactor under construction in a remote part of the country. However, the area is off-limits to outsiders without government permission and the reports haven't been independently confirmed.

Myanmar officials rarely speak directly to the foreign media or to senior Western diplomats, and representatives at the government's Ministry of Information and in embassies overseas haven't responded to questions from The Wall Street Journal about the country's alleged weapons plans. North Korea has denied assisting with nuclear equipment.

Foreign governments were watching the Suu Kyi trial to see if Myanmar was willing to signal a desire for more engagement with the West. The junta has mostly declined to bow to foreign pressure, arguing it had to hold Ms. Suu Kyi under house arrest for much of the past decades for her own safety and to maintain political order, given her history of organizing residents opposed to a military regime that has ruled Myanmar since 1962.

Ms. Suu Kyi's political party, the National League for Democracy, won a resounding victory in the last Myanmar elections held in 1990. But the regime ignored the results and subsequently tightened its grip, imprisoning several hundred opposition figures. It has also cracked down hard whenever residents expressed serious discontent, including killing 30 or more people in street protests led by Buddhist monks in 2007.

Foreign governments, including the U.S., responded to the government's tactics with repeated calls for Ms. Suu Kyi's release and with increasingly stiff economic sanctions, including rules that have prevented all but a few Western companies from doing business there. More recently, a growing number of policy makers and dissidents had been arguing that the outside world needs to soften its approach and pursue more discussions with the regime, because sanctions and other punitive measures had failed to generate meaningful change.

The Obama administration earlier this year signaled it was reviewing policies toward Myanmar, and last month, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if the regime freed Ms. Suu Kyi, it could open the way for the U.S. to allow more investments in the country. Charitable groups have called for a big rise in humanitarian aid to increase interaction between local citizens and the outside world. Leading members of the exile community -- including the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, which describes itself as Myanmar's government-in-exile -- have discussed a new reconciliation program that would involve more dialogue with the junta.

However, the conviction of Ms. Suu Kyi complicates those efforts. Although the regime is planning an election next year, presumably to boost its legitimacy to the outside world, many opposition members have said they won't participate if Ms. Suu Kyi isn't allowed a voice. That increases the odds that foreign governments and dissidents will reject the outcome of the vote.