Burmese Opposition Leader to Speak to US Lawmakers Via Video

Posted June 22nd, 2011 at 7:30 am (UTC-5)
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Members of a U.S. congressional committee will watch videotaped remarks Wednesday from Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who will discuss her country’s recent national elections.

The remarks by the Nobel Peace laureate is part of a hearing on last November’s elections being held by a U.S. House subcommittee on Asia and Pacific affairs, the country’s first elections in 20 years. International critics of Burma say the elections solidified military rule, since a party backed by the military won the most parliamentary seats.

The panel’s chairman, Republican Don Manzullo of Illinois, says the hearings will highlight the “sham” elections. Manzullo says Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech will also reveal Burma’s “dire” human rights situation.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won the last elections held in 1990, but the military junta refused to recognize the results. The party did not participate in the election after refusing to purge her from its membership rolls, which it was required to do under new election laws. Aung San Suu Kyi, who spent more than a decade under some form of detention, was released shortly after the November elections.