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Myanmar's Suu Kyi moved from prison to govt 'compound',
says party official
Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was ousted in a 2021 military coup,
has been moved from prison to a government building, an official from her party said Friday.
Issued on: 28/07/2023 - 07:42, 3 min
Text by: NEWS WIRES
This photo taken on November 3, 2019 shows Myanmar's State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi attending
the 10th ASEAN-UN Summit in Bangkok, on the sidelines of the 35th Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) Summit. © Manan Vatsyayana, AFP
Suu Kyi has only been seen once since she was held after the February 1, 2021 putsch -- in grainy state media photos from a bare courtroom in the military-built capital Naypyidaw.
The coup plunged the Southeast Asian nation into a conflict that has displaced more than one million people, according to the United Nations.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has been moved to a high-level venue compound on Monday night," an official from the National League for Democracy told AFP Friday on condition of anonymity.
The party official also confirmed Suu Kyi had met the country's lower house speaker Ti Khun Myat and was likely to meet Deng Xijuan, China's special envoy for Asian Affairs, who is visiting the country.
A source from another political party said Suu Kyi had been moved to a VIP compound in Naypyidaw.
In July, Thailand's foreign minister said he had met with Suu Kyi, the first-known meeting with a foreign envoy since she was detained. A junta spokesman told AFP the meeting had lasted more than one hour but did not give details on what was discussed.
There have been concerns about the 78-year-old Nobel laureate's health since her detention, including during her trial in a junta court that required her to attend almost daily hearings.
Suu Kyi has been sentenced to 33 years in jail for a clutch of charges, including corruption, possession of illegal walkie talkies and flouting coronavirus restrictions.
Rights groups slammed her trial as a sham designed to remove the popular leader from politics.
In June 2022, after more than a year under house arrest in Naypyidaw, Suu Kyi was moved to a prison compound in another part of the capital.
There she was no longer permitted her domestic staff of around ten people and assigned military-chosen helpers, sources told AFP at the time.
Protesters hold images of detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a Myanmar flag during a demonstration
outside Myanmar's embassy in Bangkok on February 1, 2023, to mark the second anniversary of the coup in Myanmar.
© Jack Taylor, AFP
Confinement in the isolated capital is a far cry from the years Suu Kyi spent under house arrest during a previous junta, where she became a world-famous democracy figurehead. During that period, she lived at her family's colonial-era lakeside mansion in commercial hub Yangon and regularly gave speeches to crowds on the other side of her garden wall.
Tarnished image
Suu Kyi remains hugely popular in Myanmar, even after her international image was tainted by her power-sharing deal with the generals and failure to speak up for the persecuted Rohingya minority.
But many fighting for democracy have jettisoned her core principal of non-violence and taken up arms to try and permanently root out military dominance of the country's politics and economy.
The military has cited alleged widespread voter fraud during elections in November 2020 as a reason for its coup, which sparked huge protests and a bloody crackdown.
Those polls were won resoundingly by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, with international observers at the time saying they were largely free and fair.
After the coup, many senior NLD members were jailed or sent into hiding.
In March, Myanmar's junta-stacked election commission announced the NLD would be dissolved for failing to re-register under a new military-drafted electoral law.
The junta has yet to announce a date for fresh polls it had said it will hold.
More than 3,800 people have been killed since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.
(AFP)
Suu Kyi is not so stupid as to give the junta a reason to imprison her again, let alone three. This corruption is related to either the military's lust for power, or their misogyny. Or, perhaps she refused to play along with military corruption.
UN chief calls coup in Niger 'disturbing trend' in Sahel region
Issued on: 27/07/2023 - 23:44
video 12:33
U.S. blacklists ex-Panamanian President Varela over 'significant corruption'
By Darryl Coote
Panama's former President Juan Carlos Varela has been made ineligible from entering
the United States on accusations of corruption. File Photo by Molly Riley/UPI | License Photo
July 14 (UPI) -- The Biden administration on Thursday banned former Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela Rodriguez from entering the United States on accusations of being involved in "significant corruption."
Varela was designated ineligible for entry by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who accused the 59-year-old of accepting bribes in exchange for government contracts while serving first as vice president and then as president, a position he held from 2014 to 2019.
"This designation reaffirms the commitment of the United States to combat endemic corruption in Panama," Blinken said.
The announcement follows President Joe Biden having taken several actions to target corruption in Central America as his administration has said it is of national security interest and a cause prompting migrants and refugees to seek illegal entrance into the United States.
Early in his administration, Biden made inedible(sic, ineligible?) for entry to the United States dozens of Central American officials accused of committing corruption and other actions to undermine the rule of law and democracy, including former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez.
The Biden administration has also banned entry to former Honduran President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa and his wife, Rose Elena Bonilla Avila.
Is it possible for a Central American government to exist without corruption?
"It is our hope that today's action will prompt Panama's elected representatives and authorities to tackle entrenched corruption and empower all those who stand up for the rule of law," Blinken said.
"Corruption anywhere damages the national security and economic health of the United States and our allies. We will continue to promote accountability for those involved in significant corruption throughout the world."
In response to the blacklisting, Varela rejected the accusations, saying that as president he transparently worked to serve the Panamanian people.
"I was an honest president of a dignified and sovereign country," he said on Twitter. "I will do everything I have to do to defend my honor and that of my family.
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