Brussels/Luxembourg, 21/10/2013 (Agence Europe) - Aung San Suu Kyi, Burmese parliamentarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner, called on the European Union on 19 October to do all it can to ensure that the Burmese government and everyone with an important role in the process of amending the country's constitution, including the army, understand that Burma cannot be taken seriously in its reform process without making changes to the constitution. At a press conference with the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, she said she wanted the world to realise that without the changes, there would never be a democratic society and the international community should support the people's aspirations by supporting the changes. Suu Kyi said it was crucial for the constitution to be changed as soon as possible and the legal commission would be submitting its ideas before the end of the year. She said that free and fair elections in 2015 and the rule of law itself hung on these changes, and without them, it would not be possible to achieve democratic standards with a justice system independent of the executive and a balance between the judiciary, the executive and the legislative.
Barroso said: “We will work with the Myanmar authorities to ensure that 2015 elections will be credible, transparent and inclusive,” explaining that Europe is prepared to send election monitors, if the authorities so desire.
Suu Kyi said that national reconciliation also depended on the rule of law and that without it, people would never be equal with each other and would not be able to live in peace. Asked about the Rohingyas minority (which the United Nations says is one of the most highly persecuted minorities in the world) and what she was planning to do to help them, the Nobel prize-winner did not make any tangible promises. Pointing out that there are many problems with different views, races and religions, she said everyone must try to understand each other. She asked the international community to help Burma achieve reconciliation rather than dividing the country by trying to encourage one community to condemn another, because such pressure did not help in the reconciliation process. Barroso said that the EU supports peace and inter-ethnic reconciliation through bodies like the Peace Centre and “will also start to provide capacity building for the Myanmar Police Force on crowd management and community policing.”
Barroso pointed out: “Myanmar deserves the support of the international community to continue with its political and economic reform process. We will continue to play a lead role in the international community in this respect. (…) I am pleased that our cooperation has progressed in the area of development and humanitarian assistance and trade and investment.” An EU-Burma task force is planned for November.
In Luxembourg on 21 October, Suu Kyi met EU foreign ministers for lunch to discuss EU support for transition in Burma, before travelling to Strasbourg to receive the Sakharov Prize on 22 October, which she won in 1990. (CG/transl.fl)