Interviews with Zin Mar Aung

There is not just only one reason. There are, I think in my personal point of view, at least two or three more reasons. Because of the – you know, the government – in the past, government has only depended on the Chinese government, politically and economically. So for a long time, China is not enough, China only is not enough. And they need to change. And they need to get more alliances from the international community and also global and regional. So that’s one.

The thing is that they need to get more alliances, apart from China. And the other thing is that the new government does not have, you know, enough budget to run, because all the generals, former generals, you know, took all of the money from the government and people. So they need money. So they cannot get any money. It is only from the China. So if the sanctions are lifted, the investment comes and they can get money to [fund] the government. That is second thing. And the third one is they need to legalize their power.

That’s why they assumed change through the 2008 constitution and 2010 elections. Another thing is in 2014, Myanmar will be the president of ASEAN. [Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional grouping of 10 countries] So the government needs to raise its figure internationally. I think that there will be some more factors, but the main thing is just these four factors, I think.

Zin Mar Aung is a Burmese civil society and political activist and a former prisoner of conscience. She was born in 1976 in Rangoon.

While a university student in the 1990s, Zin Mar Aung became active in the opposition to Burma’s military government. In 1998, she was arrested at a peaceful protest rally for reading a poem and statement calling on the military government to respect the results of elections. She was detained and convicted before a military tribunal, which did not permit her to be represented by an attorney. Zin Mar Aung was sentenced to 28 years in prison. She spent 11 years as a political prisoner, nearly nine years of which was in solitary confinement. In 2009, she was suddenly released from captivity and she resumed her civil society activities.

Zin Mar Aung has founded a number of civil society groups dealing with democratic development, women’s empowerment, ethnic tolerance, and providing assistance to former prisoners of conscience. The Rainfall group encourages greater women’s participation in public life and the Yangon School of Political Science educates young Burmese about politics and democracy.

In 2012, she was recognized by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as a recipient of the annual “International Women of Courage” award.