Return to Laclede County

Sometime this week, the man whose odyssey originating in eastern Laclede County gave the ruling military junta in Myanmar the kangaroo court case desired to affirm next year's general elections as a joke in their favor, will return home to the comfort of his home somewhere off Highway 32 east of Lebanon. And meanwhile, the woman who has become the face of the struggle for democracy around the world, remains under house arrest for the next 18 months, just after said general elections. All thanks to a senator from… Virginia?

Virginia senator Jim Webb travelled to Myanmar over the weekend to visit with the military junta's leadership, on his own accord. This trip resulted in the release of 53-year-old John Yettaw, who was sentenced to seven years hard labor following his conviction of entering Myanmar illegally. Yettaw, meanwhile, is in a Bangkok hospital following a seizure, and will have to find his own way back to Missouri. (And according to a recent search of When To Fly, it's going to run the family $890 for a one-way ticket from Bangkok to Springfield, if they book him today to arrive on 8 September.)

And what still startles me is the lack of response on the local front. After meeting with both the junta leadership and pro-democracy leader Aung San Soo Kyi, Webb has expressed support for easing sanctions on Myanmar. (Reports of China and India increasing trade with the country would undermine the current sanctions.) But in the three months the man from Falcon, Missouri, who claimed he had a vision and sought to warn Soo Kyi, no statements were made by any elected official from Missouri concerning his condition, conviction, or even that of Soo Kyi. Perhaps with Mr. Yettaw on his way home (and a reporter from a major Missouri media operation finally writing about this, this particular story by The Kansas City Star's Tony Rizzo featuring Mrs. Yettaw), we might hear from Webb's colleagues about their office's views on what transpired over the last three months.

The next stop in the “Derailing Democracy” tour: Laclede County

I'm a bit surprised by the lack of localized coverage of this particular twist to the decades-long saga concerning the military junta's rule of Myanmar (*cough*Burma*cough*cough*) and efforts by pro-democracy factions to install an actual democracy there. Specifically, this article in Lebanon's Daily Record dated 15 May is the only story actually written by a Missouri newspaper that I could find online – everything else (including the Star, Post-Dispatch, News-Leader, and both Columbia papers) has relied on AP wire with added emphasis on John Yettaw's residency in eastern Laclede County.

Since 1990, Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest by Myanmar's military junta, after Burmese voters elected her party over them. Her efforts to fight the detainment have been known throughout the world, highlighted early on by her being named the 1991 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. With elections suppose to occurring next year, many of Suu Kyi's supporters are calling Yettaw's swim across a lake to reach Suu Kyi a foolish event and one that played right into the junta's efforts to squash democracy, this just one year after Cyclone Nargis slammed into the country. Further, it comes two weeks before the junta was suppose to release Suu Kyi from house arrest.

This week, their trials are progressing, as Yettaw is charged with illegal entry of a restricted area (Suu Kyi's house) and breaking immigration laws, which could net him five years in prison. Suu Kyi, who appears to be the victim in all this as Yettaw was not invited to the house, and was actually turned away last year, stands charged for failing to report to authorities a non-family guest staying at her house overnight. Simply put: convenient way for the ruling junta to keep a popular candidate out of the next elections. (Two AP wire stories posted by The Columbia Missourian have the fewest cut-for-space omissions and do provide adequate detail of the situation. Read Article featuring Yettaw and analytical piece on Yettaw's motives.)

Given that the global consensus is rightfully focused on Suu Kyi's prolonged imprisonment and are painting the unsuspecting Yettaw in a bad light (to put this in a less serious light, Yettaw's role now parallels that of Steve Bartman in the Cubs' 2003 meltdown in the NLCS), it too is time for Missourians to stand up for those in Burma fighting for democracy. Starting with the media in Missouri's 113 other counties! The first I heard of this man being from Missouri was on CNN, and I recall no mention of it in any other major media. Heck, the story I linked from Lebanon has only one source and the source spoke on condition of anonymity!

Yettaw may have found a serendipitous way to subvert the very progress he and the pro-democracy movements of Burma have desired for over two decades, but perhaps now we Missourians can become educated about these issues and work to support change, however slim the success may be. The participants of the world's greatest democracies should not sit silent while others are punished for striving to establish the same.