Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Suu Kyi found guilty in Burma
Ousted leader convicted of corruption, draws 5-year sentence
A court sentenced Burma’s ousted civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to five years in prison Wednesday after finding her guilty of corruption for accepting about $1.3 million in gold bars and cash from a close political ally.
The conviction was based largely on the testimony of the former chief minister of Yangon, Burma’s largest city, who publicly confessed last year that he had delivered $600,000 in cash and about 25 pounds of gold to her in shopping bags.
Suu Kyi, whose trial was closed to the public and the news media, has called the charge “absurd.” The court has prohibited her lawyers from speaking publicly about the case. Her ouster in Burma has rattled other Southeast Asian nations and is expected to be a major point of discussion during President Joe Biden’s meeting with leaders from the region in Washington next month.
Supporters of Suu Kyi who are familiar with the legal proceedings said the prosecution had presented no evidence, aside from witness testimony, that she received the gold bars and currency.
Suu Kyi, who was arrested Feb. 1, 2021, as the military began staging a coup, has been charged with 17 criminal counts that her defenders maintain are fabricated.
She was convicted earlier on five lesser charges and sentenced to six years in prison. If found guilty on all the remaining counts, including nine more corruption charges, she faces as much as 163 years in prison.
Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said the conviction on “bogus corruption charges” shows the regime’s determination to silence her.
“The days of Aung San Suu Kyi as a free woman are effectively over,” he said. “Destroying popular democracy in [Burma] also means getting rid of Aung San Suu Kyi, and the junta is leaving nothing to chance.”
Burma is often called Myanmar, a name that ruling military authorities adopted in 1989. Suu Kyi and other regime opponents have refused to adopt the name change, as have the U.S. and Britain.
Burma’s military, which ruled the country for nearly 50 years before allowing civilians to begin sharing power in 2010, seized full control again last year and arrested hundreds of elected officials, most of whom remain in prison.
Mass protests began and the military responded by shooting civilians in the streets.
Since the coup, the security forces have killed at least 1,798 civilians, and the regime is holding more than 10,300 political prisoners, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Suu Kyi’s corruption conviction comes a year after leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations met in Indonesia with the coup leader, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, and set forth a five-point plan to end the violence, begin dialogue and provide humanitarian aid.
But the junta has yet to carry out any of the measures, and ASEAN has been ineffective in pressuring the regime.
Special envoys appointed by ASEAN have not been allowed to meet with Suu Kyi. Nor have the envoys met with the pro-democracy National Unity Government, which was formed by elected officials who have escaped arrest and leaders of ethnic groups who have long opposed military rule.
The ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, a group of current and former members of parliaments, said that the fivepoint consensus had failed and that it was time for Southeast Asia’s leaders to take a more aggressive approach, including suspending Burma’s membership in ASEAN and imposing sanctions and travel bans on junta leaders.
“The question to ASEAN leaders now is: Will you allow the military to continue committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, and threaten the human security and economic development of the region for another year?” the group asked Sunday.
The main witness against Suu Kyi in the corruption trial was U Phyo Min Thein, the exchief minister of Yangon and a prominent party leader and fundraiser.
In a televised confession shortly after the coup, he said he visited Suu Kyi at her home on three occasions in 2017 and 2018 and each time had brought her bags containing gold bars, bundles of hundred-dollar bills, expensive silk items and food.
He gave her the gifts to win her favor, he said, and told her she could use the money for her “personal needs,” to fund the National League for Democracy or for the Daw Khin Kyi Foundation, a charitable organization that she had established in her mother’s name.