Pesante News
Los Angeles, CA
May 22, 2008
Pesante USA Condemns Burma Junta for Suu Kyi Show Trials in Myanmar court
Los Angeles – -- The Philippine Peasant Support Network (Pesante)-USA based in the United States, a member organization of AJLPP slammed Myanmar ( aka Burma) for its show-trial for democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who proclaimed her innocence in front of a prison tribunal Friday as the prosecution wrapped up its case on the fifth day of her trial.
Pesante also questioned the motives of the junta when It filed the charges against her just weeks before a May 27 deadline when her latest six-year spell of detention was due to expire.
Pesante-USA said that the junta just wants to keep her locked up ahead of elections planned for next year under a controversial "roadmap to democracy" that enshrines a role for the military in government. The military has ruled Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, since 1962.
The opposition leader of Burma's democracy movement who is charged with breaching the terms of her house arrest after an American man swam in homemade flippers to her lakeside home, responded to the judge who asked if she was guilty of the charge.
"I have no guilt as I didn't commit any crime," her lawyer and spokesman Nyan Win reported Aung San Suu Kyi as saying. The lawyer said Aung San Suu Kyi privately told her defense team that she blamed a failure of security at her compound for the visit by John Yettaw, who is also on trial along with the two female aides who live with her.
Myanmar's junta earlier Friday went on the diplomatic offensive over the trial, blaming "anti-government elements" for Yettaw's visit and alleging he was a "secret agent or her boyfriend".
Pesante said that people should remember that the regime has kept the Nobel Peace Prize winner in detention for 13 of the past 19 years since her National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory in 1990 polls. The junta brutally crushed the people’s movement in 1988 and have detained Aung Sang since then.
Pesante has worked with US-based Burma Forum that passed sanctions in the Los Angeles City Council against the US oil companies working with the military junta in Burma( Mymar)
For more information please contact Al P. Garcia of Pesante-USA at 213-413-4944 or email at
magsasakapil@hotmail.com 