The UN Security Council agreed on Thursday on a watered-down statement expressing “serious concern” at the extended detention of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar after a tougher draft met opposition from China, Libya, Russia and Vietnam.
After two days of closed-door bargaining, the 15-member body could only agree on a statement expressing “serious concern at the conviction and sentencing of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and its political impact” and reiterating “the importance of the release of all political prisoners.”
Britain’s UN Ambassador John Sawers, the council chair this month, described the non-binding statement as “an important expression of serious concern about the outcome” of the Aung San Suu Kyi trial.
A court at Yangon’s notorious Insein Prison on Tuesday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to three years’ imprisonment and hard labor for breaching the terms of her house arrest following an incident in which a US man swam to her lakeside residence in May.
Than Shwe, head of the ruling junta, commuted the sentence to 18 months under house arrest, but the trial and the verdict have created international outrage.
“I think we all know that different members of the Security Council have different views on the situation there and that the strong views in various Western capitals are not entirely shared in countries elsewhere,” Sawers said as he sought to explain why an initial US draft was watered down.
The text approved on Thursday noted the decision by the Myanmar government to reduce Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentence and urged the military regime “to take further measures to create the necessary conditions for a genuine dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and all concerned parties and ethnic groups in order to achieve an inclusive national reconciliation.”
The EU on Thursday broadened its sanctions against Myanmar in the wake of the trial.
Brussels imposed a visa ban and asset freeze on members of the judiciary and in what it called “targeted measures,” the 27 EU nations widened the bloc’s existing assets freeze to cover businesses “owned and controlled by members of the regime” and their associates.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been confined for 14 of the past 20 years, ever since the military regime refused to recognize her National League for Democracy’s landslide victory in the last elections held in 1990.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
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