UN special rapporteur on human rights visits Myanmar
By DPA, IANSMonday, February 15, 2010
YANGON - UN Special Rapporteur Tomas Ojea Quintana arrived in Myanmar Monday for a five-day official visit to assess the country’s political and human rights situation.
Ojea was scheduled to meet Friday with diplomats based in Yangon and the legal team of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is serving an 18-month house arrest sentence, UN sources said.
Ojea said in Geneva that he hoped to meet with Suu Kyi and other political leaders during his third mission to Myanmar, which is scheduled to hold a general election some time this year.
“It would be important for me to meet with political party leaders in the context of this year’s landmark elections,” he said in Geneva.
There are at least 2,100 political prisoners in jail in Myanmar, deemed a pariah state among Western democracies.
Suu Kyi, 65, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD) opposition party, has spent 14 of the past 20 years under detention.
On Saturday, Myanmar authorities released Tin Oo, the 84-year-old deputy leader of the NLD, after keeping him under house detention for seven years.
Tin Oo was a founder of the NLD. The party won the 1990 general election but was denied power by Myanmar’s ruling military regime.
The junta has promised to stage an election this year, although many analysts doubt it would be free or fair. The 2008 constitution pushed through by the military assures the army a controlling role over any elected government, by allowing it to dominate the Senate.
It is not yet clear whether the NLD will contest the election.
Tin Oo was scheduled to meet with the party executive committee Monday to discuss the election and other matters.
Authorities arrested Tin Oo in May 2003 on charges of disturbing public order, after pro-government militias attacked the convoy carrying him and Suu Kyi near Depayin, in Upper Myanmar.
In August, a Yangon court sentenced Suu Kyi to 18 more months under house arrest for breaking the conditions of her previous detention, by allegedly allowing US citizen John Yettaw to swim to her lakeside compound.
