The latest phase in the persecution of the brave Burmese dissident Daw Aung San Suu Kyi by Burma’s odious and repressive ruling junta is underway, and today testimony was given in this bizarre case by the American John Yettaw, who swam across a lake to reach Ms. Suu Kyi’s house on May 3rd, and spent the better part of a day there before swimming away. Ms. Suu Kyi is charged with violating the terms of her imprisonment by entertaining this uninvited guest.
Mr. Yettaw, a Mormon from Missouri, apparently claims that God sent him to protect Ms. Suu Kyi from an assassination plot that was revealed to him in a dream. It is hard to imagine that there isn’t a great deal more to this story than meets the eye, even beyond the obvious assumption that the brutes running the country set the whole thing up (in one of many odd details, apparently when the police spotted Mr. Yettaw in the lake, they didn’t shoot at him, but “threw stones”).
The most curious aspect of the whole thing, perhaps, is the very unusual name ‘Yettaw’, which, had you just shown it to me and asked me to guess its origin, I would have said was… Burmese.
You can read the news at CNN here, or take in an informative Wikipedia article here.