2023-08-01 10:46:02
Aung San Suu Kyi, during a speech in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, January 28, 2020. AUNG SHINE OO / AP
The singular destiny of the deposed Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi has just taken a new turn on Tuesday August 1, confirming the decidedly improbable nature of a life marked by confinement, power and collective adulation: in prison since the military coup of February 2021, the former dissident, who became head of government, has just been, at least partially, pardoned by the very man who had dismissed her, General Min Aung Hlaing, head of the junta.
Sentenced in December 2022 to thirty-three years in prison after an eighteen-month sham trial during which she was accused, among other charges, of corruption, violations of state secrets and restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Suu Kyi, 78, could even, according to still partial information, be released soon. For the moment, nothing has been confirmed on this subject: it seems that at least part of his sentence has been reduced and five of his nineteen convictions have been pardoned.
A terse statement read on television news simply announced on Tuesday that Ms. Suu Kyi, ” Who [avait été] sentenced by competent courts” been “pardoned under the Human Rights Act”. The measure also concerns seven thousand prisoners and corresponds to the amnesties traditionally granted at the start of Buddhist Lent, which lasts three months.
Read also our archive (2021): Article reserved for our subscribers Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence reduced from four to two years
This pardon, even partial, was unpredictable, even in this “Myanmar” – the official name of the country – of legendary political opacity: many observers of Burmese political life feared that the former Lady of Rangoon, her nickname at the time of his years of dissidence, end his days in prison. It is true that the situation is catastrophic and the generals are no doubt thinking, as their predecessors have done in the past, during other military dictatorships, of developing a new strategy leading to the organization of elections intended to ensure the regime a façade of legitimacy.
Civil war
Because two and a half years after the coup, the civil war is raging over a large part of the territory and the resistance of the guerrillas of the ethnic minorities supported by the armed groups from civil society has so far prevented the soldiers from putting down the rebels. More than three thousand people have been killed since February 2021 during anti-regime demonstrations and then during fighting between the Tatmadaw – the army – and the resistance fighters.
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