Myanmar
opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi said on
Wednesday it was too
early to declare
democratic reforms
brought in after five
decades of military rule
were irreversible and
played down talk of
accepting a cabinet seat.
Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Suu Kyi and her
National League for
Democracy (NLD) will
contest 48 by-elections in
April that could give
political credibility to the
isolated southeast Asian
state and help speed the
end of Western sanctions.
Last March the former
military junta made way
for a nominally civilian
government that
embarked on a major
reform drive, freeing
hundreds of political
prisoners, loosening
media controls and
engaging with Suu Kyi,
the 66-year-old leader of
Myanmar's pro-
democracy movement.
"Some are a little bit too
optimistic about the
situation. We are
cautiously optimistic. We
are at the beginning of a
road," said Suu Kyi,
speaking to an audience
of students at Ottawa's
Carleton University via a
video link.
"Ultimate power still rests
with the army so until we
have the army solidly
behind the process of
democratisation we
cannot say that we have
got to a point where
there will be no danger of
a U-turn. Many people
are beginning to say that
the democratisation
process here is
irreversible. It's not so,"
she added.
Suu Kyi cited 1990
elections that her party
won by a landslide. The
junta ignored the result
and Suu Kyi - already
under house arrest -
remained locked up for
15 of the next 22 years.
Western investors are
interested in the former
Burma, an
underdeveloped country
of 60 million people with
rich energy, metals and
timber resources.
Suu Kyi backs sanctions
imposed by the United
States and the European
Union on the grounds
they pressured
Myanmar's rulers to
make concessions. Talk of
removing the punitive
measures should wait
until after the elections,
she indicated.
"We must wait until after
the elections to find out
whether or not there
have been real changes.
And depending on these
changes, there should be
suitable changes in
policy," she said.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of
assassinated
independence hero
General Aung San, looks
set to easily to win a seat
in the national assembly
in April. Many in the
nation speculate she
might accept a
government post, possibly
even a cabinet job.
"Since the offer has not
been made I think it
would be premature and
rather presumptuous to
make an answer to that,"
she said when asked
about joining the cabinet.
"I can tell you one thing -
that under the present
constitution, if you
become a member of the
government you have to
vacate your seat in the
national assembly. And I
am not working so hard
to get into parliament
simply to vacate my
seat," she said.
Even if the NLD wins all
the by-elections, it will be
dwarfed by other parties
in the 1,158-seat
legislature.
"We do have many allies
among the ethnic
nationality parties and we
are confident that we will
gain more allies as we go
along," said Suu Kyi.
(Reporting by David
Ljunggren; Editing by Eric
Beech)
