We’d like to have peace. We don’t want more conflicts in our ethnic areas. Yeah, I like my country to be very peaceful, democratic society. We know that it will take time, decades to be a real democratic society. So we should take our time. That’s why civil society utters pleas in every phase that remind that it will take time. It depends on you, not on Aung San Suu Kyi [Aung San Suu Kyi is the leader of National League for Democracy (NLD). She led the NLD to victory in the 1990 elections, but the military government ignored the results and put her under house arrest. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991] or President Thein Sein [President of Burma from 2011 – present]. What we can do for our community is ask how we can improve our country in the future.
The more we do, the more we get a better future. That’s the kind of message we keep giving to the community. So yeah, because, you know, our country was in a very hopeless situation. So the poor people really expected the best things to come out after the transition [In 2011, Burmese President Thein Sein began a reform agenda that has eased government restrictions on civil liberty and opened more political space for opposition parties], but now, they realize that because they have learned a lot, and also Daw Aung San Suu Kyi keeps giving them this type of message, that democracy does not – how can I say that –come overnight or something like that.
So – but at least, they will know– a little. We should take time. But to be a real democratic society, we need not only [ethnic] Burmese people, all the ethnic peoples and the minority people should unite with each other and try to reach our goal. And we should keep – how can I say that – we should go hand in hand to get our goal. And at that moment, very practical when I like to be is to stop the conflicts, to cease fire and to get the peace talks. You know, to get the peace talks is not very difficult. If there is a will, there is a way.
We believe like that. That’s why in 2013, there will be a peace talks with KIA. KIA is the Kachin Independence Army [the military arm of the Kachin Independence Organization, a political group composed of ethnic Kachins in northern Burma]. And the Burmese military have peace talks. And we will continue after the peace talks to unite our country. And again, for the – as you know, I’m a private tutor in my life. That’s why education – I want to see students who study in a classroom freely and happily and the education quality is very good, like America or – so I wish to see such kind of things in our country in the future.
Khin Lay is a Burmese civil society and political activist. She was born in Yangon in 1971.
She pursued a career in education, hoping to be a university professor. That ambition changed after Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma’s democracy movement, inspired Khin Lay to take an active role in freeing her country. In 1995, Khin Lay joined Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD).
As a member of NLD, Khin Lay endured constant surveillance by the regime. In 2000, she was arrested by authorities for her involvement with the party. After five days of interrogation in which she was blindfolded and deprived of sleep, Khin Lay spent four months in Insein Prison, a facility notorious for its deplorable conditions and use of torture. She was released in 2001.
More recently, Khin Lay has focused on strengthening women’s rights and building a more robust civil society. She founded the Triangle Women Support Group, an organization dedicated to empowering Burmese women, developing their political and professional skills, as well as encouraging greater participation in public life. She believes that fostering a new generation of strong, female leaders is a key component to Burma’s democratization.
Burma, a Southeast Asian country with about 57 million people, is ruled by a military regime that seized power in 1962. Although the reformist National League for Democracy (NLD) won overwhelmingly in a 1990 election, the country’s military rulers ignored the results and arrested NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 “for her nonviolent struggle for democracy and human rights.” The military government held a referendum on a new constitution in 2008 and a parliamentary election in 2010, neither of which was regarded by international observers as free or fair, and both of which resulted in overwhelming majorities for pro-government positions and candidates. The military regime has committed widespread and systematic human rights violations, including extrajudicial killing, torture, rape, and denial of freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion.
Throughout its existence, the regime has been at war with a number of Burma’s ethnic minority groups. Ethnic minority voters overwhelmingly supported the NLD in the 1990 election, and after the suppression of the democracy movement several of these groups continued or resumed armed resistance to the de facto government. Although the government signed cease-fire agreements with several of these groups ostensibly granting them autonomy within their respective regions, the Burmese military has used a range of brutal techniques, including the killing of civilians, forced labor, rape, and the destruction of homes, crops, and villages, in cease-fire zones as well as in areas where there is still armed resistance.
In 2007, as on several previous occasions, there were mass demonstrations throughout the country demanding freedom and democracy. The 2007 demonstrations were led by Buddhist monks and eventually became known as the “Saffron Revolution” after the color of the monks’ robes. The armed forces brutally suppressed these demonstrations—estimates of the number of protestors killed range from 31 to several thousand—and intensified popular dissatisfaction with the government by the killing, beating, and public humiliation of monks.
The nominally civilian government resulting from the 2010 election has been widely regarded as a façade for continuing military rule. However, in October 2011, the government released 206 of Burma’s estimated 2,000 prisoners of conscience. The next month, the government announced that it would soon release all remaining political prisoners. The NLD, which had declined to participate in the 2010 election, registered to participate in the next election and announced that Aung San Suu Kyi would be among the NLD candidates.
Although the military regime announced in 1989 that it had changed the English name of the country from Burma to “Myanmar,” the United States government and other international supporters of democracy in Burma have generally continued to call the country Burma because this is the name preferred by Aung San Suu Kyi and other democracy advocates who won the 1990 election.
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