NLD Website Launched

Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi showed this weekend that—despite many years in detention—her resolve to keep apace with an ever-changing world is as dynamic as ever when she presided over the launch of her party, the National League for Democracy's (NLD's) first website.

“A good communication system is essential to our endeavor to set up a people's network for democracy that will span the whole world,” said Suu Kyi in a statement on the site's home page.

“I am very pleased indeed that there is now a web page that will make the policies and activities of the National League for Democracy known across the globe,” she added.

On Jan. 20, the Nobel Peace Prize winner finally received Internet access at her Inya Lake home from the Myanmar Post and Telecommunications Enterprise.

Speaking to The Irrawaddy on Monday, Moe Zaw Oo, the secretary of the exile National League for Democracy (Liberated Area) Foreign Affairs Committee, said the NLD can voice polices and information through its website.

“This website can be a place to make contact with the NLD,” he said.

However, the NLD in Rangoon denied that the website, http://www.nldburma.org was designed and created by party members in Burma.

“The website was created by NLD members abroad,” said Tin Oo, the NLD vice chairman. “It would have been very difficult to create it inside Burma. It is hard enough just to get a telephone line in this country.”

Some observers said the NLD is denying involvement in the website because of the Burmese military junta's infamous Electronics Act, which carries sentences of between seven and 15 years imprisonment.

The law, which forbids unauthorized use of electronic media, has been used against many pro-democracy dissidents in trials held at Insein Prison, resulting in lengthy prison sentences for critics of the ruling regime’s crackdown on monks in 2007 and its response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008.

In 2009, the state-run media in Burma issued warnings aimed toward members of the NLD, saying they could be charged with violating the Electronics Act for posting a party statement about Suu Kyi’s trial on the Internet.

The website also carried a “greeting” from Tin Oo. Like the message from Suu Kyi, he made no mention of the website being NLD-controlled, but congratulated the creators of the site.

“We welcome the opening of a web page dedicated to the promoting of the interest[s] of the NLD,” he said in a signed statement.

The NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 general election. However, the results were never recognized by the junta. Instead, many leading members of the party were arrested and are now serving lengthy prison terms.

The NLD executive committee decided unanimously not to register the party for the Nov. 7 election. The decision not to register was prompted by the election laws, which members described as “unjust” and unlikely to result in a fair and inclusive election.

The laws excluded anyone serving a criminal sentence from participating in the election—a provision that bars NLD leader Suu Kyi and other political prisoners. In order to participate in the election, the NLD would have had to expel Suu Kyi from the party.

The NLD was dissolved by Burma’s Election Commission for not re-registering ahead of November's election. The party submitted an appeal against its dissolution but the High Court in Naypyidaw rejected it on Friday.

Source : http://www.irrawaddymedia.com/article.php?art_id=20641