Myanmar: Exiles removed from blacklist

Myanmar shortens its list of people not welcome in the country. Among those taken off the blacklist are Federation of Trade Unions–Burma leader Maung Maung, and Nyo Ohn Myint, one of the leaders of the National League for Democracy–Liberated Areas, an offshoot of Aung San Suu Kyi’s formerly banned party that operates in Thailand–Myanmar border areas and abroad.

Radio Free Asia quotes an announcement from Burmese state media that more than 2,000 people have been removed from an immigration blacklist. This clears the way for some prominent dissidents who fled the former military regime to return home amid the country’s burgeoning political reforms.

The names of 2,082 trade unionists, business entrepreneurs, journalists, student leaders and others were removed from the 6,165-person blacklist, allowing them to return to Myanmar, the Burmese-language version of the New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.

They had been put on the list under the previous military junta in order “to safeguard the national interest”.

4,083 people still remain on the blacklist, which includes current and former Burmese citizens as well as foreigners.

Under decades of harsh rule by Burma’s military junta, which was replaced in March last year by President Thein Sein’s nominally civilian government, millions of Burmese fled to escape blatant human rights abuses, a corrupted economy, and political repression.

Read the full article from Radio Free Asia.