Myanmar has not finished with amnesty

Oct 30, 2011, 10:25 GMT

Yangon - Myanmar's pro-military government has not completed freeing political prisoners as part of the partial amnesty granted earlier this month, an official said Sunday.

'We will not stop, and also not jump with both legs,' Labour Minister Aung Gyi said after talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon.

On October 12, Myanmar's new government freed some 7,500 prison inmates, including more than 200 known political prisoners.

The partial amnesty has fallen short of the expectations of many observers.

The release of all political prisoners, estimated at more than 2,000, is one of the pre-requisites for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) to cooperate with the new government that came to power after the November 7 general election.

Another was the amendment of the party registration law, which was approved by parliament a few weeks ago.

Suu Kyi said the NLD would meet to decide whether it would re-register as a political party once the amended law is promulgated.

The NLD boycotted the election on the grounds that a party registration decree, enacted by the previous junta, would have forced the opposition party to drop Suu Kyi from their ranks as it barred people serving prison terms from being members of political parties.

Suu Kyi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, has headed the NLD since it was founded in 1989. She has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house detention.

Her last jail term ended on November 13, six days after the general election that brought the pro-military government to power.

'Re-registration of party will depend on the law,' Suu Kyi told reporters after meeting with Aung Kyi, the government's liaison officer with the opposition.

If the NLD re-registered as a political party it could contest the planned December by-election.

NLD sources have said that Suu Kyi is seriously considering contesting the by-election herself.