Suu Kyi reaches out to military with big landslide in sight
Bangladesh hands over top rebel leader to India
YANGON: Myanmar’s democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi, moving closer to an absolute majority in parliament yesterday requested a meeting with the president and the powerful military chief to discuss national reconciliation.
Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) has won over 90 percent of the seats declared so far in the lower house and is well ahead in the upper house and regional assemblies.
If the final results confirm the trend, Suu Kyi’s triumph will sweep out an old guard of former generals that has run Myanmar since the junta handed over power to President Thein Sein’s semicivilian government in 2011.
The armed forces continue to wield considerable power in Myanmar’s political institutions, enshrined in a constitution drafted before the end of nearly 50 years of rule. It is unclear how Suu Kyi and the generals will work together.
In letters to the commander-in-chief and the president dated Nov. 10 which the NLD released to media on Wednesday, Suu Kyi requested meetings within a week to discuss the basis of “national reconciliation.”
“It is very important for the dignity of the country and to bring peace of mind to the people,” Suu Kyi said in the letter. Information Minister and Presidential Spokesman Ye Htut said on his Facebook page: “In response to the letter from Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the president this morning replied to her that the meeting would be coordinated when NEW DELHI: Bangladesh handed over a top separatist leader to India yesterday, officials on both sides said, after the two countries spent almost two decades arguing over his extradition.
Anup Chetia, founder of the separatist United Liberation Front of Asom group, was arrested in 1997 and sentenced to seven years in jail in Bangladesh for illegally being in the country. But Chetia, whose group fought Indian rule of northeast Assam state bordering Bangladesh, spent 11 more years in custody while officials struggled to agree on terms to return him.
In a tweet on Wednesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said he spoke with his Bangladeshi counterpart Sheikh Hasina about Chetia, thanking her “for the help in fighting terrorism”.
Chetia is wanted in India for alleged killings, abductions and extortion during his group’s struggle in remote Assam. According to Indian media reports, New Delhi had long sought his repatriation but successive governments in Dhaka refused. Bangladeshi Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan told AFP that Chetia’s extradition was long delayed as “he did not want to go at that time. He is released (now) according to his wish.”
Dhaka spent years dealing with Chetia’s the UEC (Union Election Commission) election-related task is finished.” Relations between Suu Kyi and armed forces chief Min Aung Hlaing are said to be strained. One of the biggest sources of tension between Suu Kyi and the military is a clause in the constitution barring her from the presidency because her children are foreign nationals. Few doubt the military inserted the clause to rule her out.
‘MAKING ALL DECISIONS’
While her letters seek conciliation, Suu Kyi has become increasingly defiant on the presidential clause as the scale of her victory has become apparent. She has made it clear she will run the country regardless of who the NLD elects as president and described the constitution as “very silly”.
“We’ll find one,” she told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday, referring to her choice of president. “But that won’t stop me from making all the decisions as the leader of the winning party.”
Results so far gave Suu Kyi’s party 134 of 149 seats declared out of the 330 seats not allocated to the military in the lower house. Under the junta-crafted constitution, a quarter of the seats in both chambers are unelected and reserved for the armed forces.
To form Myanmar’s first democratically elected government since the early 1960s, the NLD needs to win more than two-thirds of seats that were contested in parliament. requests for political asylum in Bangladesh, according to the Press Trust of India news agency.
Chetia’s handover comes at a time of improved ties between India and Bangladesh as well as the signing of an extradition treaty between the two countries in 2013. Earlier this year, the neighbors sealed a decades-long border dispute following Modi’s visit to Bangladesh.
Chetia was reported to be living in Bangladesh ever since he fled India in the early 1990s after he was released from an Indian jail in 1991. Chetia is the second fugitive brought to India this month after Indonesia handed over wanted gangster Rajendra Sadashiv Nikalje on Friday.
ULFA, which started an armed independence struggle against Indian rule in 1979, declared a unilateral ceasefire in 2011, paving the way for a peace accord between the Indian government and the rebel group. One of the largest rebel groups, ULFA accused New Delhi of exploiting the region’s natural resources. But following the deal the group scaled down its demands and is now seeking an autonomous ethnic region under Indian rule. More than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have lost their lives to insurgency in Assam during the past two decades. — AFP
The NLD has said it is on course for over 250 seats in the lower house, well above the 221 needed to control the chamber. Reuters was not able to independently verify the party’s estimates of its own performance. The ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), created by the junta and led by retired soldiers, has conceded defeat in a poll that was a major milestone on Myanmar’s rocky path from dictatorship to democracy.
Suu Kyi also requested a meeting with former USDP chairman Shwe Mann, the lower house speaker. He lost his seat, but before the election had been seen as a presidential contender.
He antagonised the military while in parliament and built close ties to Suu Kyi, arousing the suspicion of many in his party.
CONTROL OF BUREAUCRACY
In addition to his bloc of parliament seats, the commander-in-chief nominates the heads of three powerful and big-budget ministries - interior, defense and border security.
The interior ministry gives him control of the pervasive bureaucracy, which could pose a significant obstacle to the NLD’s ability to execute policy. Among other formidable challenges for Suu Kyi is trying to put an end to decades of conflict with armed ethnic groups. Thein Sein failed to do that despite protracted talks that led to a ceasefire with some groups. The government’s chief ceasefire negotiator, Aung Min, was among the heavyweight politicians that lost in the elections.
Sunday’s vote was Myanmar’s first freely contested general election since Thein Sein ushered in a period of reforms that prompted a partial lifting of international sanctions.
Money from abroad flowed in quickly afterward. Foreign direct investment stood at $8 billion in fiscal 2014/15, more than five times the flows recorded just two years earlier.
Washington welcomed the election as a victory for Myanmar’s people, but said it would watch how the democratic process moved forward before lifting the remaining US sanctions. Final results are due no later than two weeks after Sunday’s poll. — Reuters