A US activist freed by Myanmar expressed his determination yesterday to fight for the release of thousands of political prisoners held by the regime, as he returned home.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin, 40, a Myanmar-born rights activist who holds US citizenship, was reunited with his fiancee before telling journalists about his ordeal.
He spoke of the “mental torture” he had suffered in the six months since his arrest, during which he said he was kept mostly in a solitary, insect-infested cell.
A small crowd of fellow Washington area residents originally from Myanmar cheered him and offered congratulatory balloons as he walked off his commercial flight on Friday with a State Department escort.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who was thin and suffers leg pains but spoke lucidly, immediately embraced his fiancee Wa Wa Kyaw, a nurse also born in Myanmar who had lobbied the US government to take up his case.
“I am really happy to meet my fiancee ... but my family and all my friends stay in prison, so I feel not really happy,” said Kyaw Zaw Lwin, who also goes by the name Nyi Nyi Aung.
“I learned from people how much they really want to get freedom,” he said. “They are really trying hard, but the regime is so terrible.”
“I have a lot of responsibility to do more for a free Burma,” he added, referring to Myanmar by its former name.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin said he had traveled to Myanmar to visit his mother, who is also detained for political activities and is suffering from cancer, but he never got to see her.
He was arrested on Sept. 3 and said he was deprived of food and water during his first two weeks of detention. The treatment later improved, but only slightly.
“The prison is physically fine, but mentally they torture,” he said, recalling he stayed in a dark room with a vile stench.
“There were a lot of insects. In the nighttime you couldn’t sleep — the dog is barking. All day long you have to stay in that cell,” he said.
Kyaw Zaw Lwin said he would seek a medical assessment on his leg, which gives him pain after the solitary confinement.
He was sentenced to three years in prison last month on charges of forging an identity card, failing to declare currency at customs and violating immigration law for not formally renouncing his earlier nationality.
Following his sentence, his supporters criticized US President Barack Obama’s administration.
They said it had failed to take up Kyaw Zaw Lwin’s case as the US pursued a new policy of dialogue with the junta aimed at ending its isolation.
His fiancee Wa Wa Kyaw wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal Asia, saying she felt “betrayed” by her adopted country for not doing enough in this human rights case.
On Friday, however, the couple went out of their way to thank the administration.
Wa Wa Kyaw said she was “very happy” with the State Department and that she had been in contact with Kurt Campbell and Scot Marciel, top US officials handling Asian affairs.
The regime released Kyaw Zaw Lwin as it comes under intensifying international criticism ahead of elections it plans later this year.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Two daughters of an Argentine mountaineer who died on an icy peak 40 years ago have retrieved his backpack from the spot — finding camera film inside that allowed them a glimpse of some of his final experiences. Guillermo Vieiro was 44 when he died in 1985 — as did his climbing partner — while descending Argentina’s Tupungato lava dome, one of the highest peaks in the Americas. Last year, his backpack was spotted on a slope by mountaineer Gabriela Cavallaro, who examined it and contacted Vieiro’s daughters Guadalupe, 40, and Azul, 44. Last month, the three set out with four other guides
RSS