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STATEMENT ON THE 8TH ANNIVERSARY OF 1990 ELECTION VICTORY (INTERVIEW)
26 May, 1998 by U Aung Shwe (Chairman), Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (General Secretary), and U Tin U (Deputy Chairman)
U AUNG SHWE: The NLD participated in the democratic general elections held in May 1990. We won 82 per cent of the seats. That's a great majority. Without the confidence of the people, we could not get so many votes. It's quite a lot. We are very thankful to the voters for voting for the NLD.
At that time, we issued a manifesto, as you know, for this election. The political objective is to have democracy in our country. As for the economy, we want an open market economy. And for the cultural side, we want freedom of religion, freedom of education, freedom of speech and all these democratic principles. I think because of those things and because the people believe that we can do it, they voted for us.
We entered the election according to the election rules, the election law published by the authorities, and in that law there is one section, Section 3, which says that categorically that the parliament must inform the winning MPs that they have won the elections, but nothing has happened so far. It is very regrettable. It is a very sad state of affairs. And I think the people are very dissatisfied with that.
DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI: It is now 8 years since the elections of 1990 in which the people of Burma decided, by voting for the NLD, that they wanted a democratic system. It is 8 years since the elections have been ignored by the authorities, but we still stand by the promises that we made to our people then.
We want to work for democracy not because democracy is some kind of magic word, or some kind of magic state, but because we believe this is the only way we can resolve the social, economic and political problems of our country. ... nobody can deny we are in an economic mess. Prices are increasing all the time, the incomes of the people are not keeping pace with inflation, there are more and more poor people in the countryside. There are some very, very rich people and that in itself is bad because that means there
is a greater gap between the very rich and the great majority of the people, who are poor.
We also have social problems, the greatest which is our lack of proper education. The universities have been closed since December 1996 and there is a backlog of students waiting to get into university. The health care system is in a shambles. There are so many things wrong with the country.
This is why we want to get to democracy as quickly as possible, to resolve all these problems. We believe that with a government that is accountable to the people and has the confidence not only of our country but of the international community we will be able to resolve both our economic and social problems, not to speak of the political problems which of course will be automatically resolved once we achieve our democratic goal.
Now Burma is suffering from lack of investment. The NLD stands for sanctions against investment in Burma at the moment, because we do not believe that investment now helps the people in any way. If there is an accountable government that will spend the revenues earned in a responsible way and decide on an investment policy that is beneficial to the public at large, certainly then we shall encourage investment and we will be able to get over quite a lot of the present problems. (Then) we will be able to open the universities. Why are the universities closed now? This is because the government is nervous that if they reopen the universities there will be unrest among the students. Then we have to ask another question, Why do they think there will be unrest among the students? Unrest only comes when there is discontent. If we can create a situation in which the students as well as the public at large can be satisfied, then there is no need to fear unrest. So, we want to work for the reopening of the universities, for the establishment of an economic system that is fair and will lead to sustained economic development, and we want to work for a system in which the great
majority of our people who live in the rural areas will be able to achieve progress and prosperity. Our farmers are suffering at the moment from a lack of an equitable agricultural policy. We have to look to all this. Democracy for us is a means to an end, it's a way of creating peace and prosperity for our country. We are absolutely confident that once we are able to achieve our political goal we will be able to achieve the economic and social goals that are common to all of us in Burma.
I do not believe that anyone in Burma wishes our country to be poor, I do not think it (the regime) wishes our people to be uneducated or semi-educated. As soon as we come to some kind of settlement with the authorities we are absolutely confident that the National League for Democracy will be in the position to call for the kind of proper investment that will lead to the prosperity of our people. The National League for Democracy will have the courage to reopen the universities and make sure that the education of our young people is not jeopardized in any way by political problems. We are confident that we'll be able to create a health care system that will truly take care of our people, not just of the rich and the privileged.
U AUNG SHWE: Political dialogue has been consistently requested, but so far we have not been successful yet. But if it goes on like this forever, I think the people suffer because there are now political problems, economic problems and cultural problems. All these problems cannot be solved without meeting each other and talking to each other. We are very sorry that nothing has come about yet.
DAW AUNG SAN SUU KYI: We are committed to dialogue, we think this is the only way to resolve the problems of our country. There are those (members of the government) who think that accepting dialogue is an admission of defeat. We do not think this is so. We think that to accept dialogue would be to display strength by the government, to show that they have strength and courage to do what is in the best for the country.
We want dialogue because we want to find a solution that is best for everybody, that is to say particularly for the people of Burma and also for the government, and those who are in the opposition at the moment. We do not want revenge, we do not think there is anything particularly honourable or admirable about seeking revenge, we want to find a peaceful settlement ...we remain committed to dialogue. It may be difficult to get there, but we're determined to get that. And we're absolutely confident that we shall get that.
U TIN U: ...we will never seek for any form of revenge to anybody, and we will never seek for any retaliatory action ... searching for revenge is showing something like cowardice.
Dialogue is the only way that can solve all the problems in our country. Therefore we very much desire to have a dialogue with our democratic forces led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and the ethnic races, as well as the present military regime.
U TIN U: There is no rule of law and there is no independence of the judiciary system here. Regarding human rights, there is no change. Even though the SLORC government has changed its name, there is no change, it is like putting the new foot in the old boot ... after they change their name there are quite a lot of clear cases where they have started doing another kind of harassment of human rights.
And now, those people under imprisonment in the Insein jail have been dispersed, (some) remain in Insein jail, but the rest have been taken away and transferred to other far away prisons such as Myitkyina, Myingyan and other places. The leader of our youth have been transferred to the very far away prison such as Kalaymyo, which is, how shall we say, torturous, too far away to have any sort of link with their family. The family cannot manage to meet even though they are allowed a fortnight interview. The legal system in Burma has become a casualty of the present regime.