" NLD မွာပညာတတ္မရွိပါဘူး "လို႔ ဇာဂနာေျပာဆိုခဲ့ေၾကာင္း ဘန္ေကာက္ပို႕စ္ေဖၚျပ

Freed Burmese comic set to stand up and deliver
Burma's most famous dissident comedian, who survived "electronic shock" torture during eight years in prison, has been allowed out of the country for the first time and is travelling to the Clinton Foundation in the US while requesting that US economic sanctions be lifted.

The satirical Maung Thura is popularly known by his stage name Zarganar - "Tweezers" in Burmese - and met US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Burma earlier this month.

"This is the dawning era of our country, this is the start of change," Zarganar said, describing Burma's new tentative shift from harsh military rule towards some civilian administration and fragile political freedom. "You should support us. Now improvement starts," the bald Zarganar, 50, said at a Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand news conference last Monday shortly after arriving from Burma.

"This afternoon, I already met with the World Bank. They want to give some aid, or some help, some humanitarian aid. So if they lift up the sanctions, we can get aid for our people not for our military."

Washington has lead efforts to clamp international sanctions on Burma, insisting that financial hardship will force the impoverished country to embrace democracy.

After decades of dodging the sanctions by establishing economic ties with China, India, Thailand, Singapore and other nations friendly to the junta, Burma has started to allow some media freedom and political activity, while requesting that the US lift its boycotts.

"Now I can say, 'I am here.' This is [an] improvement. Many times [in the past], I didn't get a passport. I [haven't] gone to any country. This is my first trip."

Zarganar said powerful minority ethnic groups waging insurgencies for independence or autonomy are Burma's biggest problem.

The regime should arrange peace talks with Shan, Karen, Karenni, Wa and other groups who have been fighting guerrilla wars on and off since the country gained independence from Britain in 1948, he said. Zarganar had positive words for Burma's opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, but said her National League for Democracy (NLD) party lacked intellectuals.

"Our country has no intellectual people in the political area. For example ... [where] are the intellectual people in the NLD?"

Mrs Suu Kyi's NLD recently re-registered as a political party to run in a promised, but unscheduled, 2012 by-election for parliament which is dominated by the military and pliant civilian politicians.

The NLD won a nationwide election in 1990 but Mrs Suu Kyi was not allowed to become Burma's leader because the military, which has ruled since a 1962 coup, ignored the polls.

Zarganar, a dissident poet, performer and film-maker, was jailed four times, and most recently released on Oct 12 among a group of prisoner amnesties.

In 1988, during his first six months in jail for participating in a failed 1988 pro-democracy insurrection, an army major "tortured me" in Insein Prison, Zarganar said.

"He beat me. He kicked me many times. He gave [me] electronic shocks.

"The second time I was arrested, in 1990, that experience was very terrible ... I was in solitary confinement for five years. I had no friends. No cell mates. No paper to use as toilet paper. So I used the leaves to clean my faeces.

"There was no window in my cell," he said, describing his punishment for making political jokes. After a three-week jail sentence in 2007 for helping Buddhist monks stage anti-government protests, his fourth term of imprisonment began in 2008 when he was sentenced to 35 years for "public order offences" because he criticised the regime for restricting emergency rescue efforts during Cyclone Nargis in May that year, during which 140,000 people died.

Prison conditions improved slightly during his recent stint.

"I had a chance to read a lot of books. For example, On China by [former US secretary of state Henry] Kissinger," he said.

Zarganar plans to arrive in America on Jan 30 and remain for three months, during which he says he will study at the Clinton Foundation.

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