A leading Myanmar activist, pivotal in massive protests in 1988 and 2007, has refused to visit the US to collect a democracy award after fellow dissidents were denied passports, a member of his group said Saturday. Min Ko Naing, who was released from jail in January after spending much of the last 20 years as a political prisoner, refused to travel to Washington for next week's ceremony after only three members of his "88 Generation" group obtained travel documents.
Nineteen student leaders applied to Myanmar's home affairs ministry for passports but only three, including Min Ko Naing, have received them so far, according to 88 Generation leader Thet Zaw. "We heard that they have kept a one-year suspension on issuing our passports as 88 Generation student leaders came out from prisons. This is breaking the constitution," Thet Zaw told AFP from Kachin state.
"We all will go abroad only when we all get our passports at the same time." Min Ko Naing was among five people due to receive an award on September 20 at the National Endowment for Democracy event, on behalf of Myanmar's democracy movement which resisted decades of brutal military rule. Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is scheduled to speak at the highly-publicised event and the refusal of the 88 Generation leaders to travel is likely to heap embarrassment on Myanmar's quasi-civilian government.
The 88 Generation movement led protests against the junta that spread from major universities to the streets of Yangon and then across the country. Reviled chairman Ne Win stepped down after several months of demonstrations, but the army kept its grip on the country and a huge August rally was crushed in a bloody crackdown that left at least 3,000 people dead.
Despite their failure to topple the junta the rallies planted the seeds of political struggle in the minds of a generation. Min Ko Naing, a key leader of both the 1988 student movement and the 2007 Saffron Revolution, had spent much of the past 20 years as a political prisoner in solitary confinement until his release this year.