Re: Relase Unlikely for Aung San Su

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Subject: Re: Relase Unlikely for Aung San Suu Kyi


<TDAT> NYT-07-02-94 1439EDT
  RELEASE UNLIKELY AS MYANMAR REBEL NEARS 5 YEARS IN DETENTION (ll)
  By PHILIP SHENON
  c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
  
     YANGON, Myanmar  Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace laureate
  and dissident in Myanmar, is approaching the fifth anniversary of
  her house arrest with no sign that her captors in the military
  intend to free her, or even talk with her.
     Diplomats, human rights groups and the American lawmaker who met
  with her last winter say they are dismayed that the military
* government of Myanmar, formerly Burma, is still refusing to open
  any sort of dialogue with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi despite its
  suggestion earlier this year that it was ready to negotiate.
     ``Certainly I am disappointed that the SLORC has not engaged in
  a dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi,'' said the lawmaker, Rep. Bill
  Richardson, using the acronym for the State Law and Order
  Restoration Council, the formal name of the junta.
     ``It seems that they used my trip as a PR exercise. I think
  they're playing for time.''
     Richardson, D-N.M., who met with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi in
  February, said in a telephone interview from Washington that he
  planned to return to Myanmar in August and that he still held out
  ``the faint hope'' that he might be able to convince the junta to
  open negotiations with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi.
     He said that he had received no assurances he would be permitted
  to meet with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, although the government
  ``hasn't said no to my request'' to see her.
     He said he had originally planned to return to Myanmar this
  month but that the government asked him to delay the trip until
  after July 20, the fifth anniversary of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's
  house arrest.
     In February, Richardson led a group of four Americans who were
  the first foreign visitors to see Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi who were
  not relatives.
     The Oxford-educated daughter of Myanmar's national hero, Mrs.
  Aung San Suu Kyi was detained in 1989 as part of a violent military
  crackdown on the democracy movement that she led.
     Her political party, the National League for Democracy, went on
  to a landslide victory in a 1990 election  a victory that
  Myanmar's military commanders refused to recognize.
     Diplomats in Yangon, the capital, formerly known as Rangoon,
  said in recent interviews that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who turned 49
  last month, was in good health as she remained confined to a
  lakeside compound here that had belonged to her late mother. Her
  husband, an Oxford University scholar, and their two sons are
  allowed to visit her.
     Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has refused to accept assistance from the
  government and lives off the royalties from her book, ``Freedom
  From Fear.'' The royalties are transferred to a bank account in
  Yangon and used to buy food and other necessities.
  
     (STORY CAN END HERE. OPTIONAL MATERIAL FOLLOWS)
  
     The junta has said that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi could go free if
  she agreed to leave the country immediately. In her meeting with
  Richardson, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said she would never accept the
  military's conditions for her departure.
     Despite the junta's assurances to Richardson last winter that it
  would consider negotiations with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, diplomats
  say that military commanders in Myanmar have only recently begun to
  debate the issue seriously. And they say the military has not yet
  dispatched any sort of senior emissary to speak with her.
     Clinton administration officials say that after months of delay,
  the State Department will release details this summer on a review
  of American policy toward Myanmar that will call for a continued
  ban on international development aid until the junta releases Mrs.
  Aung San Suu Kyi and takes steps toward democracy.
     The officials say the United States has all but abandoned hopes
  of imposing additional sanctions on Myanmar through the United
  Nations because of resistance from Myanmar's neighbors. China,
  Singapore and Thailand have been stepping up their investments in
  resource-rich Myanmar.