Kuwait Elections Empowering,Aung San Suu Kyi Back in Jail

Maureen Dowd
Yevgeny Bazhanov
Jon Meacham
Fatima Bhutto



"I want to know every awful act committed in the name of self-defense and patriotism." - Maureen Dowd


Fatima Bhutto wrote in Foreign Policy on the current Pakistani military's scuffle with their local Taliban: "Zardari’s double game may have brought him billions more in American aid and assistance -- U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke being the president’s loudest champion in Washington, warning Congress that if billions of dollars are not delivered immediately to Pakistan the war on terror will be in mortal danger -- but it has lost him Pakistan. As we watch the number of internally displaced people rise steadily toward two million our army kills our own citizens, it should come as no surprise when the BBC Urdu service reveals that the government controls only 38 percent of the NWFP province -- a number that is sure to fall as the weeks go on."



Kuwait also had elections over the weekend and made history. Women were given the right to vote here in 2005, and four women were elected to parliamentary seats. Borzou Daragahi reports in the LA Times: "Voters in four districts elevated women into parliamentary jobs. It's believed to be the first time women have been elected to serve as lawmakers in any of the oil-rich Gulf monarchies.

"It's a victory for Kuwaiti women and a victory for Kuwaiti democracy," lawmaker Aseel Awadhi, a philosophy professor, said after winning a seat. The nation's 50-seat parliament doesn't have the power to challenge Kuwait's ruling Sabah family, but it does have the power to slow up building projects and policy changes.

When the last parliament tried to summon the prime minister on corruption allegations, the ruling Emir, Sheik Sabah al-Sabah, dissolved the chamber and called for new elections.

One of the winners, Massouma Mubarak, previously served as Kuwait's health minister, the country's first female Cabinet member. On Sunday the Emir said he wholeheartedly supported women's arrival in the parliament.

Many Western analysts worry that hardline Islamists would dominate free and fair elections in many Middle East countries and then establish Islamic governments. But after gaining ground over the last few years , Kuwait's Sunni Islamists actually lost bigtime during the Saturday vote as their parliamentary bloc dropped from 24 to 16 seats, according to the Associated Press.

After 25 years of trying to create their own state, the ethnic Tamil Tigers have officially given up to the Sri Lankan government. While the rest of the world was more concerned with the escalation of Taliban activities, Sri Lanka made a move to wipe the Tigers off of the island once and for all, causing over half a million refugees to flee the area. This has been one of the uglier conflicts in the world, with neither party getting much sympathy for their cause.

In one of the more bizarre and tragic stories, the crazy old generals that comprise the military junta that rules Myanmar, or Burma, have manufactured a way to put Aung San Suu Kyi in house arrest for at least 5 more years. From the NY Times: "The seemingly all-powerful junta, which jails its opponents and crushes popular uprisings by force, is afraid of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, 63, the pro-democracy opposition leader in the country formerly known as Burma, and of the continuing undercurrent of support she commands among the people.

On Thursday, the generals who rule the country demonstrated their continuing fear of this lone challenger by charging Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi with violating the terms of her most recent, six-year term of house arrest and locking her inside what it calls a prison “guesthouse.”
She faces a trial hearing on Monday on charges that could result in a prison term of up to five years, a harsher form of the isolation she has endured for 13 of the past 19 years.

“They are trying their best to put her out of the minds of the population,” said her lawyer, U Kyi Win, speaking Friday by telephone from Myanmar’s chief city, Yangon. “But the more they do that, the more they are highlighting her. That is the reverse effect that it is having.”

The junta’s motives, and the effect of its actions, are familiar. But the circumstances of the latest charges against her have a touch of the absurd. They stem from the capture of an American adventurer, John Yettaw, 53, who twice swam across a lake to her house where, according to her lawyer, he delivered her a Bible, although she is a Buddhist.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is on trial for violating the terms of her house arrest, though her lawyer describes the American as an intruder, not a guest. She is being charged along with two women who live with her as housekeepers and her doctor, who treated her for low blood pressure and dehydration shortly after Mr. Yettaw swam away May 5.

The weird pawn in this is Mr Yettaw, who has not explained himself. He said that he was a psychology student, but the school he mentioned said they had no record of him enrolling. He lived in a trailer with his 3 kids in a semi-rural area of Missouri, getting by on Veteran's pension and odd construction jobs. He put the kids up with friends and relatives, visited his ex-wife and told her he was doing a psychology paper on forgiveness, then flew to Thailand, and later went into Burma on a tourist visa.

He turned some sandals into flippers and swam across a lake to arrive uninvited at Ms Kyi's house. Although a Mormon, he gave her a Bible, not a Book of Mormon, and stayed a night before trying to swim back across the lake, where he was arrested.

So far, no reporter has asked where he got the money to fly half-way across the world on a whim. He appears either crazy or stupid and his actions seem out of character for a person of his stature. Either he is just an Ugly American, or some twisted group in cahoots with the junta convinced him to do this, knowing that he wouldn't question this as a helpful gesture. Well, at least he didn't shoot and kill anyone, or else we'd have another lone gunman theory to contend with...