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Burma's Tin Oo is free
by Thanos Kalamidas
2010-02-16 09:12:22 |
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Perhaps a step of desperation after the united exclaim from the international community; perhaps a tactical move before the next inhuman strike, perhaps just an accident but Burma’s dictatorial regime let free the vice-chairman of Aung San Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy part, Tin Oo.
Mr. Tin Oo, a former general and defence minister until he was forced into retirement in 1976 from the military coup and then drove to prison with a variety accusations and a variety of sentences that kept him in and out of prison or home arrest all this time. Freeing Mr. Oo is critical since the dictatorial regime leads the country to elections for the first time for over thirty years and the participation of NLD is still under question.
But if the dictatorial military regime wants to show to the international community that something has changed in the region and that they are not the gangsters everybody things (or knows) that they are and the participation of the NLD in those elections is critical despite the fact that they will do anything to boycott any possibility of winning.
Aung San Suu Kyi and Tin Oo know all that too well and it is up to them if they will play the game. Till now they have proved that and following the non violence road they know that is going to be a lot of violence in front of them. But they don’t just preach democracy, they actually live democracy and they have become an example with their own lives that democracy is not just a political system but a way of life.
I think this is a message we should all look more carefully and understand. Aung San Suu Kyi, Tin Oo are living in democracy, they have made democracy part of their life, every day life even accepting torture and imprisonment as part of the sacrifice. Comparing them with modern politicians is only embarrassing to see how much they violate any sense of democratic spirit and how much they use democracy for purely personal and populist reasons.
I think Tin Oo will accept the participation of NLD to the elections despite the fact that he knows that it will be a huge masquerade, a fraud and mockery of democracy but NLD will be there because they believe in democracy, they believe that democracy has the power to prevail and they believe that democracy in the end wins even if that means thousands dead and tortured and thirty years in prison.
And I think this is the worst enemy for the dictatorial regime of Myanmar, this is what they cannot win and this is what will beat them in the end. The democratic spirit of Aung San Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and the rest of the fighters of Burma’s National League for Democracy.
Ovi+politics Burma Thanos_Kalamidas Ovi |
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