The Hindu : International : I am eager to catch up on news: dissident leader

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Nov 22, 2004

International

International

I am eager to catch up on news: dissident leader

YANGON, NOV. 21. Myanmar's most prominent student dissident, just released from more than 15 years in jail, says he is anxious to learn about his country's situation after his long period of isolation.

Min Ko Naing (42) was freed on Friday as part of the general release of almost 4,000 prisoners announced by the ruling junta.

The military government said it was freeing the prisoners because they had been wrongly accused by the former National Intelligence Bureau, dissolved by the junta last month.

The Bureau had been headed by the former Prime Minister, Gen. Khin Nyunt, who was ousted on October 19 and later accused of corruption and insubordination.

There were no reports of releases on Sunday, and no prisoners have been released from Yangon's main Insein Prison since Friday. Communications difficulties and the lack of official announcements make it difficult to monitor the situation outside the capital.

Mr. Min Ko Naing — whose real name is Paw U Tun — was a university student in the Myanmar capital when, as founding chairman of the All Burma Federation of Students Union, he became one of the best-known leaders of a 1988 popular uprising against military rule.

After the military violently suppressed the pro-democracy demonstrations, Mr. Min Ko Naing — a pseudonym meaning ``Conqueror of Kings'' — was arrested and sentenced in March 1989 to 20 years in jail for his political activities.

``I am now like a person who was put in a completely dark room for many years and suddenly brought into daylight,'' he told the Myanmar-language service of Britain's BBC radio on Saturday. ``My eyes are blurred and I cannot see things clearly yet. I have to take some time to allow myself to readjust to the environment.''

Mr. Min Ko Naing served the first nine years of his sentence in Insein Prison, but in 1998 was transferred to Sittwe in the remote northwestern state of Arakan in an evident effort to isolate him.

``Generally, I had to stay alone most of the time when I was in prison, so I was very much out of touch with what is going on, what is the situation outside. I had the chance only to learn some information about my friends and relatives when my family visited me,'' he said.

He recalled vividly the day of his release, ``when the prison head called me and asked me my national registration card number.''

``I asked him why. He said they were going to buy a plane ticket to fly me back home. I suddenly recalled the (Myanmar) saying that `the day you are released from prison is one of the three happiest days in life,' but at the same time I was thinking Am I really going to feel happy?'''

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