As military rule gives way in Myanmar, eyes are on the prisoners

Myanmar’s new government, installed through elections in November, began spring housecleaning by beginning to free the country’s political prisoners.

The first wave freed were students, jailed more than a year ago for protesting modifications by the then-military government to higher education that the students saw as infringements on academic freedom. Their public complaints, supported by Buddhist monks, were deemed anti-government protests and they were imprisoned. The new government, led by President U Htin Kyaw and Aung San Suu Kyi, newly named state counselor acting as an equivalent prime minister, has made the freeing of political prisoners its leading item of business.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy triumphed with 77 percent of the vote in what were relatively free elections. They were conducted under a constitution that still gave a disproportionate amount of influence in the form of seats in the parliament and the guarantee of ministerial posts to the Myanmar military. So far, however, the constrained military has not interfered with the NLD government’s exercise of power.

Former President U Thein Sein, an ex-general, in a typically Myanmar move shed his military role and was ordained as a Buddhist monk.

There remain in Myanmar prisons at least 526 other prisoners, deemed political, jailed by previous military regimes. It will be a valid test of the credibility of political change in the country to see whether the new government will be able to free them as well without interference by the military.

The United States and the rest of the world will be watching closely.

— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette