Democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi may be set for release early next month, setting Myanmar abuzz with the news of her detention ending. While the detention is scheduled to end early November, it is up to the ruling Junta when she will actually be set free.
For fifteen of the past twenty one years, Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Laureate has been in detention after her party won at the country’s last elections in 1990. The military refused to hand over power and she has been in house arrest or some form of detention since.
The Junta plans on holding elections just days before the scheduled release of Suu Kyi, but there is widespread belief that the elections are a meaningless charade, and Suu Kyi’s release a mere olive branch to detractors.
International rights groups have observed that there is no guarantee of Suu Kyi’s release, nor any expectation that the political situation in the country will change if she is released.
"Regime officials have said similar things in the past, and Aung San Suu Kyi has remained in detention." Commented Mark Farmaner of Burma Campaign UK. He added that if she is released, there shouldn’t be too much political significance attached to it, "it is more likely that the dictatorship will try to use her release to attempt to persuade the international community to relax pressure on them."
The Junta-backed party going into the elections has no real opposition, and is expected to sweep the polls, in a somewhat mock-attempt at democratic elections.
