YANGON, Burma (AP) — Australia
said Monday it is easing some restrictions on members of Burma’s ruling elite
in response to political reforms by its military-backed government.
The decision came as the party
of Burma democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi began gearing up to contest
by-elections on April 1. Her National League for Democracy party has cautiously
endorsed reforms instituted by President Thein Sein that include legalizing
labor unions and freeing some political prisoners.
Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd
announced the easing of sanctions during a visit to Indonesia, Australia’s
Foreign Affairs Department said.
“The changes to the sanctions
list are an acknowledgment that Burma is taking a number of important steps
toward a more open democracy and greater engagement with the region,” the
department said a statement, using the name for Burma preferred by the
country’s democracy movement.
Australia bars visits by senior
Burma officials and bans financial transactions with them. Like other Western
nations, it imposed the sanctions because of abuses by the previous military
government.
The new policy removes former
Cabinet ministers who have left politics and tourism officials from the
sanctions list. The statement said an arms embargo remains in place.
“We hope positive developments,
such as the increased participation of opposition parties in the political
process, the release of around 220 political prisoners, and new labor laws that
will legalize trade unions, will continue. In this context we will keep our
approach to sanctions under review,” Rudd said in the statement.
The United States and Britain,
whose foreign secretary last week visited Burma, have not eased their
sanctions, saying the release of more political prisoners is a key indicator of
the progress of reforms. Between 1,000 and 2,000 political prisoners are
believed to still be detained.
Thein Sein took office last
year after a general election boycotted by Suu Kyi’s group, which said the
polls were undemocratic.
The government legally
dissolved her party for falling to contest the election, but recently granted
it official approval to contest the April 1 polls after it agreed to rejoin
electoral politics. Suu Kyi is expected to run for a seat in parliament.
Her party won a sweeping
victory in a 1990 general election, but could not take power when the military
refused to allow parliament to convene.
On Monday, the party unveiled a
new party logo for the upcoming polls and launched full-scale activities.
The logo uses the party flag,
with a yellow fighting peacock and a white star on a red background. The
fighting peacock was used by student activists during pro-democracy uprisings
in 1988 and became a symbol of the democracy movement.
Suu Kyi, already the party’s
secretary general, took over as its chairman Monday, party spokesman Han Thar
Myint said. Suu Kyi, 66, replaced 92-year-old Aung Shwe as part of a
pre-campaign reorganization of the party’s executive committee, which has been
dominated by old and ailing senior members.
Most of the 48 seats being
contested on April 1 were vacated by lawmakers who became Cabinet ministers
after the first parliamentary session last January.
The military is guaranteed 110
seats in the 440-seat lower house and 56 seats in the 224-seat upper house, and
the main pro-military party holds 80 percent of the remaining 498 elected
seats, so even if the NLD wins all 48 seats up for grabs, it will have little
power in parliament.
AP
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