Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for 'freedom from fear'

Myanmar's Suu Kyi calls for 'freedom from fear'

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi called for "freedom from fear" and further moves towards democracy in her first ever televised election campaign speech aired Wednesday.

US envoy Derek Mitchell (left) talks to the media after his meeting with Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi at her residence in Yangon. Suu Kyi has called for "freedom from fear" and further moves towards democracy in a leaked video of her first televised campaign speech to be aired ahead of the April 1 by-elections.

"Unless people get human rights with freedom from fear, a democratic system cannot be established and developed," Suu Kyi said, echoing the title of her well-known political essay "Freedom from fear."

"Only under the rule of law can people really feel the taste of freedom by really getting protection of the law," she said, ahead of April 1 by-elections in which the pro-democracy icon is standing for parliament for the first time.

The speech was censored by Myanmar's authorities to remove criticism of the former junta, the democracy icon said earlier.

Suu Kyi also called for the abolition of laws which have "oppressed the people."

"We have to write and enact laws that can protect the people," she said.

The Burmese-language speech, which was leaked om the Internet ahead of its official broadcast, can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR3vv0DK_jw.

Seated in front of an NLD flag, the Nobel peace prize winner also called for a ceasefire to bring an end to the country's long-running conflicts with ethnic minority guerrilla armies.

The appearance on national television of Suu Kyi, who spent much of the past 22 years under house arrest, would have been unthinkable until recently and is a sign of how far the regime has moved with a surprising series of reforms following the end of nearly five decades of outright military rule.

Since a nominally civilian government took power early last year, Suu Kyi has been welcomed back into the political mainstream and her NLD is contesting 47 seats of 48 available in the upcoming by-elections.

In her speech, Suu Kyi said that the 2008 junta-drafted constitution is not democratic, pointing to the unelected military personnel who hold one quarter of the seats in parliament.

Suu Kyi was under house arrest during a 2010 nationwide election, which was boycotted by the NLD and marred by widespread complaints of cheating.

Observers believe the regime wants Suu Kyi to win a seat in the April polls to give its reformist programme legitimacy and spur the West into easing sanctions against the country.

US special envoy for Myanmar Derek Mitchell said the by-elections would be "a very important moment" in the country's transition towards democracy, after he held talks with Suu Kyi at her Rangoon home on Wednesday.

Mitchell said officials had not given a commitment to allow international observers to monitor the poll, but stressed organisations in the region were "very credible and could be reassuring to the people here".

Each party is allowed to record a 15-minute speech for broadcast on national television.

Suu Kyi told Radio Free Asia in an interview last week that officials removed a paragraph from the prepared text of her speech before it was recorded.

"The part about how there wasn't rule of law and the military government had repeatedly used the law to repress the people, that is censored," she was quoted as saying.

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