Will Suu Kyis party boycott election?
Western powers may already be resigned to the fact that Suu Kyi won’t take part in next year’s planned elections, a move that could split the NLD on whether or not to join the process, says Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Burmese analyst in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The military wants to engineer a transition to civilian rule that protects them and fears a challenge from Suu Kyi, who remains a unifying symbol for Burma’s disgruntled masses. “It’s in the interest of the international community to see some kind of civilian government in Burma in the next few years,” he says. Some activists have argued that the UN should investigate Burma for crimes against humanity, on the basis of repeated accounts of systematic abuses by Burmese troops in restless eastern provinces. Such an inquiry would require the approval of members of the UN Security Council.
