Myanmar’s Suu Kyi urges peace talks, prisoner release

Myanmar pro-Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi gestures during a news conference to mark the first anniversary of her release from house arrest, at the National League for Democracy head office, in Yangon November 14, 2011. Myanmar’s government is preparing to release prisoners under an amnesty, for the second time in just over a month, and more political detainees should be among them, a senior official said on Sunday.



Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked the anniversary of her release from years of house arrest by renewing calls for all political prisoners to be freed and for an end to hostilities between government troops and ethnic rebels.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate also told a rare news conference today that her National League for Democracy (NLD) movement had yet to decide whether to re-register as a political party to contest upcoming parliamentary by-elections.

Russia’s Khodorkovsky sentenced, West concerned

A man holds a portrait of jailed Russian former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky during a picket in support of Khodorkovsky near the court building, as an Interior Ministry officer walks past in Moscow on December 30, 2010.

Former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s jail term was extended until 2017 yesterday when he was convicted of theft and money-laundering in a trial condemned in the West as politically motivated.

With Khodorkovsky and co-defendant Platon Lebedev watching from a glass-walled courtroom cage at the close of their trial, the judge said there was no way they could be reformed without “isolation from society.”



Russia’s leading human rights activist called the sentence “monstrous” for the defendants and their country, and the United States said it appeared to result from “an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends.”

Moscow judge Viktor Danilkin granted the prosecutors’ request and ordered Khodorkovsky serve 14 years in prison, including his current eight-year term and counting from the day of his arrest at a Siberian airport in October 2003.

Khodorkovsky, once Russia’s richest man and head of the now defunct Yukos oil company, is in the final year of an eight-year sentence imposed after a politically charged fraud and tax evasion trial that marked one of the defining acts of Vladimir Putin’s 2000-2008 presidency.

Russia has told the West to mind its own business and rejected as “groundless” US suggestions that the verdict resulted from selective justice.

“We remain concerned by the allegations of serious due process violations, and what appears to be an abusive use of the legal system for improper ends,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

A senior official in President Barack Obama’s administration said the verdict would complicate Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organisation — an effort Obama has supported as part of a “reset” that has improved Russian-US relations.

“It is not going to help their cause, it is only going to complicate their cause,” the official said.

“The impression remains that political motivations played a role in this trial,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin. “This contradicts Russia’s frequently repeated intention to pursue full adoption of the rule of law.”

One of the young tycoons who built fortunes after the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse, Khodorkovsky fell out with Putin’s Kremlin after airing corruption allegations, challenging state control over oil exports and funding opposition parties.

Dressed in black, Khodorkovsky, whose previous sentence was due to end next October, stood stunned as Danilkin announced the sentence, which his lawyers said was made under pressure from Prime Minister Putin.

“May God damn you and your descendants,” Khodorkovsky’s mother, Marina, shouted at the judge’s back as he hurriedly left the courtroom immediately after the sentencing.

Khodorkovsky had adamantly denied the charges, and supporters said the conviction made a mockery of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s pledges to improve the rule of law.

“Our example shows that in Russia, you cannot hope the courts will protect you from government officials,” Khodorkovsky and Lebedev said in a statement read out by lead lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant after the sentencing.

“The sentence was clearly issued under pressure from the executive authorities, headed as before by Mr. Putin,” said Yuri Shmidt, another lawyer on the defence team.

“Putin signalled to the court who is the boss today and who today decides Khodorkovsky’s fate and life,” he said.

“This sentence is monstrous for these two honourable people and for the country,” Lyudmila Alexeyeva, a Soviet-era dissident and Russia’s most prominent right activist, told Reuters.

“The fate of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev and the length of their imprisonment depend on how long Putin stays in power.”

Putin made no public reference to the sentence, and his spokesman declined to comment. President Medvedev also made no public comment.

WEST CRITICAL OF RUSSIAN RULE OF LAW

The sentence stoked renewed accusations of selective justice and could strain Russia’s ties with the United States and the European Union, which said the conviction raised questions about Moscow’s commitment to human rights.

“The consequences will be hard for Russia as a country seeking to attract investment and will take a toll on its reputation internationally,” Maria Lipman, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Centre, told Reuters.

The Obama administration official said the case would complicate Russia’s bid for membership in the WTO, which Putin said on Wednesday Moscow could be expected to join next year, because “the WTO is a rules based, rule of law organisation.”

“Most countries around the world do not look at this verdict as a demonstration of the deepening of the rule of law in Russia It will definitely have an effect on Russia’s reputation,” the official said.

With the economy slowing after the global financial meltdown hit Russia harder than its emerging market peers, Medvedev has courted the West and sought US and EU support for a campaign to modernise the energy-reliant economy.

He has vowed to curb corruption and lawlessness that hinder investment, but has made little progress. Western nations have warned pointedly that independent courts are a crucial foundation for economic progress.

INVESTMENT ISSUES

But many investors are inured to the backdrop for business in Russia, and the Kremlin may have calculated it could afford to keep Khodorkovsky in jail. Putin has tried to soothe investors by casting him as an isolated case.

In the second trial, which dragged on in a drab Moscow courtroom for nearly two years, prosecutors said he and Lebedev stole nearly US$30 billion (RM94.2 billion) in oil from Yukos subsidiaries through price mechanisms and laundered some of the money. Khodorkovsky’s lawyers dismissed the charges as a pretext to keep him in jail.

They vowed to appeal the verdict, opening the door to a potentially divisive debate over his fate in the run-up to parliamentary elections next year and a 2012 presidential vote that could see the return of Putin to the Kremlin.

After Khodorkovsky’s 2003 arrest, Yukos was bankrupted by back-tax claims and its top assets sold to the state.

Jailed China Nobel winner asks wife to collect prize

Jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has asked his wife to travel to Norway to pick up his Nobel Peace Prize, she said today.

“Xiaobo told me he hopes I can go to Norway to receive the prize for him,” Liu Xia said by telephone from her house where she is under virtual house arrest.

“I think it will be very difficult,” she added, when asked if she thought the government would allow her to go.

Liu Xia said the government had not yet explicitly told her she would not be allowed to go to Norway. The prize will be formally bestowed on December 10 in Oslo.

China said today that giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed dissident showed a lack of respect for its legal system, in further criticism of an award that has stirred tensions over human rights.

Liu Xia, the wife of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, holds a photo of her husband during an interview in Beijing October 3, 2010. She has been asked by her husband to collect the prize on his behalf

China slams Nobel prize for dissident as ‘disrespectful’

Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a jailed dissident showed lack of respect for China’s legal system, the government said today, in further criticism of an award that has stirred tensions over human rights.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said that the prize, awarded to Liu Xiaobo, would not affect the direction of China’s political system, and repeated that it had damaged relations with Norway, where the peace prize committee is based.

“Giving the Nobel Peace Prize to a criminal serving a prison sentence shows a lack of respect for China’s judicial system,” Ma told a regular news briefing in Beijing.

China has condemned the Norwegian government, which has no say over the prize, and cancelled a planned meeting with a Norwegian fisheries minister.

A security officer gestures at the entrance of a residential compound where Liu’s wife lives in Beijing October 8, 2010






“The Chinese government and people have reason to express their dissatisfaction,” Ma said, adding Norway damaged ties by supporting the committee’s decision.

Diplomats from the European Union as well as Australia and Switzerland unsuccessfully tried to visit Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, in her apartment in western Beijing yesterday but were blocked.

The US Embassy urged China to lift any restrictions Liu Xia and earlier President Barack Obama called for Liu Xiaobo’s release.

Asked about Obama’s comments, Ma said: “We oppose anyone using this matter to stir up a fuss and oppose anyone interfering in China’s internal affairs.”

Liu is serving 11 years in jail on subversion charges for demanding democratic transformation of China’s one-party state, and his wife has sent out messages she is under house arrest in Beijing, according to news reports and overseas human rights groups.

China’s ruling Communist Party has long reacted angrily to pressure over its restrictions on political and legal rights of citizens, and the Nobel Prize for the prominent dissident has prompted testy official and vehement media comment in Beijing.

The Global Times, a popular tabloid run by Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, said in a commentary today that the Nobel committee members, who “live in luxury”, had no right to pass judgment on China’s legal system.

“This is not a dispute about democracy, but an incitement for ‘dissidents’ to break Chinese law,” it wrote. “The Cold War has long since ended, but it stains the hearts of some people still.”






 

China still at war over Nobel Peace Prize

One week on, and China is still smarting from the "hurt' it suffered when jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

"Can anyone expect a country to stay silent when its sovereignty and dignity are violated?" Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu demanded Thursday.

He told reporters that giving Liu the prize "is equivalent to encouraging crimes in China," and "a violation of China's judicial sovereignty."

And, just hours after Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan joined the ranks of world leaders, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barack Obama, calling for Liu's release, Ma questioned their motivation.

"I wonder what their true intention is?" he demanded. "Is it because they resent China's development path and hate China's political system?"

Protesters in Hong Kong show their support for jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the Nobel Prize last week. Beijing has expressed anger over the award.

China's English-language media continued its assault on the award, too, with the Global Times saying in an editorial that the prize was part of a plan by developed nations to "harass China's growth."

It added: "Discrediting China is a way to maintain the moral superiority of the developed world."

In a column on the editorial page of the official People's Daily, Li Hongmei scoffed at the "Oslo elites" who selected Liu and said: "Yes, China has always wanted a Nobel Prize. But we will never want a prize subjected to abasement."

Ordinary Chinese are allowed to hear some of the government's denunciations and name-calling, but nothing about the winner except that he is a criminal and certainly nothing about how the rest of the world has reacted.

Only netizens with the wherewithal to bypass the Chinese censors have even a chance of getting a balanced view of the controversy the award has spawned or any sense of what Liu, who is serving 11 years in prison for daring to propose Beijing move gradually towards democracy and rule of law, did to merit his honour.

The advocacy group Reporters without Borders said in a statement: "The (Chinese) government's credibility will be badly damaged if it denies the Chinese people access to any information about Liu's Peace Prize except its own hostile reactions. Why do the Communist Party's leaders not let Chinese citizens judge the award's historic significance for themselves?"

The group said the independent Chinese PEN Centre has reported that 40 journalists and rights activists have been "held or questioned" since the prize was announced last Friday." Their crime was to try to celebrate Liu's win.
       

Iran ready to free detained American woman on bail

Iran said yesterday it will free on bail one of three Americans accused of espionage and held for more than a year, a day after her release was unexpectedly halted by the judiciary.

The Tehran prosecutor told state television Sarah Shourd would be freed on US$500,000 (RM1.55 million) bail and permitted to leave the country.

Shourd was detained near Iran’s border with Iraq in July 2009 along with two male companions, Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal. Their families say the three were on a mountain hike in northern Iraq at the time.

Officials said last week Shourd would be freed two days ago, but Iran’s judiciary suspended her release at the last minute, saying the legal process had not been completed. The delay could indicate a rift among Iran’s hardline rulers.

“The American spy can be released as soon as her US$500,000 bail is deposited ... She is not barred from leaving Iran but has to appear in the court at trial time,” Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said.

“The other two American hikers will remain in jail.”

A lawyer representing the three, Masoud Shafie, told Reuters he met the Americans for the first time since their arrest and presented their final defenses. The prosecutor could now present his indictment, which would precede a trial.

“She will be free as soon as the bail is paid. They were fine today and they sent their love to their families when I met them at the court,” Shafie said. “Detention of the other two has been extended for two months and no trial is expected soon.”

WASHINGTON WARY

David Axelrod, U.S. President Barack Obama’s chief political adviser, said: “We’re hopeful and we’re encouraged by this news but there have been starts and stops in this before, and until that actually happens we’re on a wait and see basis ...

“They should never have been in jail in the first place. They’re being held under false pretences and they should be released, and we’re working very hard to see that happens,” Axelrod said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

An Iranian analyst who asked not to be named said the delay in Shourd’s release “brought to the surface the power struggle” between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other hardliners.

“Ahmadinejad wants to gain international respect after the disputed presidential vote in 2009,” he said, referring to an election which the opposition says was rigged.

Another analyst said her release may be linked to Ahmadinejad’s trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly later this month.

“His government has been under attack for violation of human rights. This may be a way to evade further attacks in New York,” the analyst said.

State media reported on Friday that Shourd would be released as a result of intervention by Ahmadinejad, to show the “special view of Iran on the dignity of women.”

Some hardline MPs criticised Shourd’s planned release, accusing the government of “meddling in the judiciary’s affairs,” the Tehran-e Emrouz daily reported yesterday.

ISNA, the student news agency, quoted the prosecutor on Sunday as defending the right of the judiciary to make the decision without outside pressure.

The judiciary chief is a brother of parliament speaker Ali Larijani, one of Ahmadinejad’s political rivals, who lost to him in a 2005 presidential vote. Larijani is a staunch critic of the president’s economic and foreign policies.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, espionage can be punishable by execution. Dolatabadi said Shourd’s release on bail was a display of Islamic clemency, based on reports that Shourd was ill and needed treatment.

Shourd said in May that she had been held in solitary confinement. Her family says Shourd has been denied treatment for health problems, including a breast lump and precancerous cervical cells.

Washington rejects the spying allegations and has demanded the detained Americans’ immediate release. Their case has further complicated relations between Tehran and Washington already fraught over Iran’s nuclear activities.

Myanmar opposition in disarray as polls approach

Boycotts, draconian election laws and resignations of opposition figures have put Myanmar’s ruling generals within easy grasp to sweep the first polls in two decades, just two weeks after setting an election date.

Myanmar’s politically marginalised opposition appears in total disarray in the run up to the much-criticised November 7 polls, experts say, playing into the hands of a military regime with no intention to give up its 48-year grip on power.

“Than Shwe’s (above) only political strategy is divide and rule and a weakened opposition is just what he needs





The leader of the National Democratic Force (NDF) party, Khin Muang Swe, said late on Thursday he would not run for a parliamentary seat, while influential Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday called on members of her now-defunct National League for Democracy (NLD) party to abstain from voting.

The moves, whether tactical or retaliatory, come as parties grapple with huge registration fees, strict campaign rules, intimidation by military agents and barely any time to recruit enough members to contest the election.

According to rules announced last week, campaign gatherings and publications will require official approval, criticism of the military is outlawed and election authorities are empowered to ban acts of “holding flags and chanting slogans”.

“This is just what the regime wants and has planned all along,” said Aung Naing Oo, a Burmese academic based in neighbouring Thailand.

“(Junta leader) Than Shwe’s only political strategy is divide and rule and a weakened opposition is just what he needs.”

Most analysts and opposition parties say the military has formed its own proxy party that is sure to win most seats in a parliament packed with army appointees, because of its big budget and sheer size and span of its representation.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) is comprised of incumbent army-picked ministers recently retired from the military and critics say it enjoys the backing of the powerful business elite.

Opposition at odds

Even if unpopular with mainstream Myanmar people, who voted overwhelmingly in favour of Suu Kyi’s NLD in the annulled 1990 poll, an overall USDP victory appears almost guaranteed against an under-funded opposition unable to campaign freely or come up with enough money to field candidates in all constituencies.

Moreover, analysts say, the opposition appears to be struggling to forge a common stance unlike the last polls.

The Union Democratic Party (UDP) last week said it would boycott the election if it believed it would not be free and fair. Its leader, Phyo Min Thein, seen as one of the biggest hopes for democracy, quit on Aug 15 and said fair polls were impossible.

Thu Wai, chairman of Democratic Party (Myanmar) and a former political prisoner, disagrees and says a boycott would play into the hands of the military junta and give it legitimacy.

Election laws were so tight, he added, the junta-backed USDP did not need to cheat to win.

“These parties are divided over what’s the lesser evil,” said Christopher Roberts, a Myanmar expert at the University of Canberra.

“Do they enter a less-than-perfect process that’s better than nothing or take a principled stance and boycott to push for a better model of democracy? Either way, it doesn’t look like the generals and their proxies will face much of a challenge.”

U.S. citizen freed from North Korean jail after former President Jimmy Carter flies to Pyongyang to negotiate release

Protest: Aijalon Gomes is pictured in January near the disputed border between North and South Korea during a peace rally, days before his trespass offence and subsequent imprisonment

An American citizen was free today after spending almost seven months in a North Korean prison thanks to the intervention of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Aijalon Gomes, 31, had been sentenced to eight years' hard labour for trespassing and committing a 'hostile act' in the isolated dictatorship.

But former President Carter personally intervened, flying to North Korea's capital Pyongyang to negotiate with representatives of the state's reclusive leader Kim Jong Il.

Gomes - who is believed to have entered North Korea in support of another jailed American citizen - was pardoned by the 'supreme leader'.







Fortunate: An emotional Gomes meets with former President Carter as they prepare to board a flight to Boston

Reclusive: North Korean leader Kim Jong Ill did not meet with former President Carter but did grant a pardon

Fortunate: An emotional Gomes meets with former President Carter as they prepare to board a flight to Boston

Gomes was pictured hugging former President Carter at the city's airport last night and was due to fly into Boston today for a reunion with relatives.

In Washington, the State Department welcomed the news of Gomes' release.

'We are relieved that he will soon be safely reunited with his family," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.

'We appreciate former President Carter's humanitarian effort and welcome North Korea's decision to grant Mr. Gomes special amnesty and allow him to return to the United States.'
North Korea's state-run Korean Central News Agency said Carter's visit included cordial talks with North Korea's second-highest official, Kim Yong Nam.

Kim relayed Pyongyang's interest in resuming the six-nation disarmament talks and reiterated the regime's commitment to denuclearisation, KCNA said.

However, there was no indication that Carter met with Kim Jong Il, who was making a surprise trip to China during the rare visit by an American dignitary to the North Korean capital.

A year ago, Kim sat down for talks and a well-publicized photo with former U.S. President Bill Clinton when he went to Pyongyang on a similar journey to negotiate the release of two American journalists.
The U.S. and North Korea fought on opposite sides of the 1950-53 Korean War and do not have diplomatic relations, but Carter is well-regarded in North Korea after making a ground-breaking trip to Pyongyang in 1994 to meet with Kim's father, late President Kim Il Sung.

Those friendly talks led to a landmark nuclear disarmament pact.

Aijalon Gomes was the fourth American arrested in North Korea for illegal entry in a year when he was seized in January, accused of crossing into North Korea from China.

Besides journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, also sentenced to hard labor and released last August on a special pardon, activist Robert Park deliberately crossed into the country last Christmas and was expelled by North Korean authorities about 40 days later.

Gomes' motive was not clear but he was said to be a close friend of Park and was photographed in Seoul rallying for Park's release just two weeks before his own arrest in North Korea.

In April, North Korean authorities sentenced Gomes to eight years of hard labour and fined 70 million won - more than £380,000 - for trespassing and committing a 'hostile act.' Gomes 'admitted all the facts,' state-run media said.

Last month, North Korean media reported that Gomes tried to kill himself, 'driven by his strong guilty conscience, disappointment and despair at the U.S. government that has not taken any measure for his freedom,' and was hospitalised.
A U.S. delegation, including a consular official, two doctors and a translator, made a secret visit to Pyongyang earlier this month to try to secure Gomes' release.

The group visited Gomes at the hospital but were unable to negotiate his release then, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said last week.

Tall and muscular when he appeared at anti-North Korean rallies in Seoul in January, Gomes looked markedly thinner Friday. He was dressed in a white striped polo shirt and dark slacks, TV footage showed.

'The measure taken ... to set free the illegal entrant is a manifestation of (North Korea's) humanitarianism and peace-loving policy," KCNA said.

The Carter Center and U.S. officials have emphasised that the ex-president's trip was a private humanitarian mission.

However, such visits have in the past provided an opportunity for unofficial diplomacy.
KCNA said the Americans held 'an open-hearted discussion' with North Korea's foreign minister and vice foreign minister for U.S. affairs on their countries' relations as well as nuclear disarmament.

Six-nation nuclear disarmament talks have been stalled since North Korea walked away from the table last year.

Reclusive Myanmar to hold elections on Nov 7

Myanmar will hold its first parliamentary elections in two decades on Nov. 7, state media said on Friday, ending speculation over the timing of a poll criticised by rights groups as a sham to entrench military power.

As of this week, at least 40 parties had registered to take part in the first civilian government in almost half a century in the reclusive, army-ruled country of 48 million people.

The United States, Britain and human rights groups have said the elections would be illegitimate if the military junta denies a role to thousands of political opponents now in prison, including detained Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi.





Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which won by a landslide in the last elections in 1990 only to be denied power by the military, has refused to register with the authorities in protest at what it called “unjust” election laws.

Many diplomats and analysts see the polls as intended to strengthen the military’s power under the guise of civilian rule in an attempt to lure investment to the resource-rich country nestled strategically between booming China and India.

“It’s essentially a costume change,” said Jacob Ramsay, senior analyst for Southeast Asia & Pacific for British-based security consultants Control Risks.

At least seven parties registered with the election commission are believed to be proxies of the military, which will retain control of key ministries and enjoy a 25 percent quota of parliamentary seats under a new constitution.

The armed forces chief will be more senior than the president. There are no indications an estimated 2,000 political prisoners will be released before or after the elections.

“The government has been working hard in the past months to disqualify or marginalise all possible contenders who might form an opposition to its plan to essentially parachute its generals into civilian roles,” said Ramsay.

Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention and remains under house arrest. The constitution bars her from standing in the election because of her criminal record as a political detainee and because her late husband was a foreigner.

Her NLD party was dissolved this year after deciding not to register for the polls.

Daughter of the hero of the country’s campaign for independence from British rule, Suu Kyi emerged as a champion of political reform during an unsuccessful student-led uprising for democracy in 1988. A year later she was first detained.

The National Democratic Force, a renegade faction of the NLD opposed by Suu Kyi, will run to challenge the junta’s proxies and says it will work with other pro-democracy parties. But without Suu Kyi, few expect it gain traction.

One of Myanmar’s biggest opposition political parties, the Union Democracy Party, threatened this week to pull out of the elections if there were signs of foul play by the ruling military in the run-up to the polls.

Some parties have accused the regime’s military intelligence unit of spying on and trying to intimidate their members.

Political analysts and diplomats, however, say the election could mark a turning point which, over the longer term, delivers a gradual transition of power to a civilian government free of military control. They add that this would be an evolutionary process rather than a junta-inspired shift.

Myanmar opposition party to boycott elections

The party of Myanmar's detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi decided Monday to boycott the military-ruled country's first election in two decades after the Nobel laureate blasted new electoral rules as "undemocratic."

The main opposition National League for Democracy's refusal to participate would undermine the polls' credibility in the eyes of foreign governments, which have urged the diplomatically isolated junta to ensure all groups take part in the elections.

The military, which has run Myanmar since 1962, has touted this year's elections as part of a "roadmap to democracy," but a number of rules would prevent Suu Kyi herself from participating. The pro-democracy icon has spent 14 of the last 20 years in jail or under house arrest.

Suu Kyi's party won the last election held in Myanmar in 1990 by a landslide but was barred by the military from taking power.

On Monday, her party's spokesman, Nyan Win, announced after a daylong meeting that all 113 delegates present had agreed that the party should not register for the elections.

Cheering could be heard from the delegates as they concluded their meeting.

Nyan Win said the central committee members decided not to register because — as noted in a message sent to them by Suu Kyi — the electoral laws enacted by the junta "are unfair and unjust."

Her message also called stipulations in the law "undemocratic."

Nyan Win did not elaborate, but the party had previously objected to a provision of the party registration law that requires parties to expel members who have criminal convictions, or face deregistration.

Because Suu Kyi was convicted last year of allowing an unregistered guest to stay at her home, the provision would appear not to allow her to be a member of the National League for Democracy, which she helped found.

Suu Kyi is still general-secretary of the party and its most dominant figure.

The new election laws require political parties to register before the first week in May. Parties that do not register will not be able to participate in this year's election and will cease to exist, under rules enacted this month by the military government that also bar Suu Kyi from participating in the polls.

No date has been set for the polls, which critics deride as a sham designed to cement the power of the military.

Even before the official decision, party spokesman Nyan Win indicated the party would decide not to register. Asked if that would marginalize the party, he said, "We will continue to exist politically by not registering. If we register, we will only have a name void of all political essence."

"We will survive as long as we have public support," Nyan Win said.

Security was heightened, with plainclothes police and pro-government security guards stationed around the party's compound as the delegates met Monday in Yangon.

"This meeting is a life-or-death issue. If we don't register, we will not have a party and we will be without legs and limbs," said Win Tin, a veteran party member and one of Myanmar's longest-serving political prisoners, having spent 19 years behind bars before his release in 2008.

He said the journey ahead would be difficult if the party chooses to opt out of elections but that its members could still maintain their democratic principles and spirit.

Last week, Suu Kyi was quoted by her lawyer as saying she opposed registering her party. But she stressed she would let the party decide for itself.

Suu Kyi is under house arrest and the new election laws effectively bar her both from running and voting.

Myanmar's biggest opposition party said on Monday it would not register for this year's election, meaning Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's party will have no role in the military-led political process.


The National League for Democracy (NLD) party, which won the last election in 1990 by a landslide but was never allowed to rule, said the entire party leadership had agreed not to run.

"After a unanimous vote of the central executive committee, the NLD party has decided not to register as a political party because the election laws ... are unfair and unjust," the party said in a statement.

The election has been widely dismissed as a sham after nearly five decades of iron-fisted army rule in the former Burma, a strategically situated but isolated country rich with resources like natural gas, timber and gems and a Southeast Asian port.

Senior party members made the decision six days after Suu Kyi, who has spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention, said she "would not dream" of entering if the decision was hers.

The comment was widely interpreted as a veiled instruction to party members as they prepared for a ballot on whether to run.

In comments relayed from her lawyer, Suu Kyi said the NLD was not ruined and vowed to keep up her fight for democracy.

"Registering the party under the unjust and one-sidedly drawn-up laws cannot be accepted," she was quoted as saying.

"I would like to tell the people that I will continue working for the emergence of democracy."

A senior party official had earlier told Reuters some members in favor of running in the election had been urged to vote otherwise to show the party was united.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE

Divisions had emerged in the party between advocates of a boycott and modernizers who believe the NLD would be a spent force if it did not run. However, senior NLD member Win Tin said the party would live on.

"The party will not die," he told Reuters. "We will be among the people, our activities will not stop."

The party faces dissolution if it refuses to register.

After the announcement, party members were in high spirits and chanted slogans to show their support for Suu Kyi, wearing T-shirts bearing her picture.

The NLD is most angered by the military junta's restrictive election laws, which bar current and former prisoners from taking part. Many NLD members are among the 2,100 political detainees in Myanmar, the most famous of whom is Suu Kyi.

After the last election, the junta promised to hand over power to the NLD after a constitution was drafted and a probe launched into the polls. Neither happened and the NLD was never allowed to rule.

Some in Myanmar's biggest city, Yangon, disagreed with the NLD's decision and said the country's best hope for democratic change had played into the hands of the generals.

"I think the NLD has made another major policy blunder," said a retired civil servant, who asked not to be identified.

"They've walked into a trap. They could have pressed on without Suu Kyi and got something out of the election."

Experts say the junta has learned from the botched 1990 election and has drafted a constitution that ensures it will effectively remain in charge, without the need to rig the polls.

The United States and United Nations have not publicly questioned the constitution but have said the election would not be credible if political prisoners could not take part.

Row with Winnie forces 'frail' Nelson Mandela to skip celebrations marking 20th anniversary of his release from prison

Former South African president Nelson Mandela has called off a historic return to the prison from which he walked to freedom 20 years ago.

The decision to abandon his appearance at the celebrations outside the Victor Verster Prison came after a row with his family - including ex-wife Winnie - over how to manage the 91-year-old's movements.

Local media suggested the family were concerned at how 'frail' the leader is. His absence from the event is certain to spark speculation about Mr Mandela's health.
The former African National Congress leader was released from prison on this day in 1990 in a decision that heralded the South Africa's decision to dismantle Apartheid.

Mr Mandela, who was 71 at the time, had spend 27 years behind bars on Robben Island.

Today South Africans are celebrating how far they have come since he took his first steps out of the prison.

Thousands gathered for commemorations at what was known in 1990 as Victor Verster Prison, near Cape Town.

A re-enactment had been planned of the moment Mandela, hand-in-hand with his then-wife Winnie, walked free.
But now Winnie Mandela, with other leaders of the ANC including current South African president Jacob Zuma, are set to lead the 500-yard march from the gates of the prison instead.

Reports claimed that the row over Mr Mandela's appearance was betwen Winnie, her daughter Zindzi, and other members of the family including his current wife Graca Machel.

'Something very strange has been going on,' The Times quoted a source as saying.

'Wild horses would not keep WInnie away from an event like that.

'Everyone knows that if Mandela himself went, front-page news was guaranteed.

'Others would be jealous, but he is very frail, and it is difficult to stage-manage an event like that - whereas to manoeuvre him into the National Assembly is relatively easy in comparison.'
Mr Mandela is still due to appear at the National Assembly for the official opening of Parliament, timed to coincide with the celebrations, tonight.

Cyril Ramaphosa, a leader in Mandela's African National Congress, said: 'We knew that his freedom meant that our freedom had also arrived.'

Just four years after Mandela's release, South Africans held their first all-race elections, making Mandela their first black president.

His ANC has reduced poverty, built houses and delivered water, electricity and schools to blacks who had been without under apartheid.

But needs remain great.

The celebrations came as a senior Labour MP and former trade union leader today called on David Cameron to apologise for his visit to Apartheid-era South Africa.
Mr Cameron acknowledged his party's 'mistakes' over South Africa when he visited former President Mandela in 2006.

But a biography published last year disclosed that he visited the country as the guest of anti-sanctions lobbyists in 1989, when the ANC leader was still in jail.

Conservative spokesmen said at the time that the visit was a chance for Mr Cameron to 'see for himself' what conditions in South Africa were like, and noted that he met anti-Apartheid campaigners and opposition politicians while in the country.

But former anti-Apartheid campaigners including Sheffield Central MP Richard Caborn and ex-TUC general secretary Norman Willis today wrote to the Tory leader to demand an apology.

'Your trip, paid for by lobbyists against sanctions, was a long time ago,' they wrote.

'But it was then, and is now, a question of values and judgement.

'Since the details of this trip became public, you have refused to comment on it, refused to explain why you had to keep it quiet and refused to apologise for your actions.

'We hope that on the anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release, you will set the record straight and do what is right.'


A pedestrian passes a handprint mural of Nelson Mandela in Cape Town today

adiba Day: South Africans wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Mandela's image celebrate today - but Mandela himself was forced to cancel his appearance

A crowd of ANC supporters celebrates outside the gates of Drakenstein Correctional Centre (formerly Victor Verster Prison) today

ANC supporters cheer outside the prison today - but they are set for disappointment with Mr Mandela cancelling his appearance

Celebrations: ANC supporters raise their fists in an imitation of Mandela's victory salute as they stand beneath a statue of the leader outside the prison where he spent 27 years

The end of apartheid: Left, the historic moment that Mandela was to re-enact today as he walked to freedom from prison in 1990. It was this re-enactment that was cancelled today after the row with Mandela's family over his health. Right, Mandela with current wife Graca Machal in April last year

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