Aung San Suu Kyi 'hopeful' (Sept 12

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Subject: Aung San Suu Kyi 'hopeful' (Sept 12) The Nation

THE NATION I Monday September 12, 1994
Suu Kyi 'hopeful' Burmese junta may introduce reforms  
Agence France-Presse
 
TOKYO-Dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi is guardedly optimistic 
about the chances of reform in Burma but will not give in to demands 
from the military junta to leave the country, an associate said.  
 
Rewata Dhamma, an expatriate Burmese Buddhist priest, told the Yomiuri 
newspaper that Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest since 1989, had 
not recognized the junta's legitimacy but backed its moves to democracy.  
 
"She wants to encourage them to meet democracy. She wants tto talk to 
them, to carry out democracy, not work against them but together with 
them," said Dhamma.  
 
The priest was allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Aug 7 
and 10.  
 
"She regards reforms of the economy and education as very important, 
as without them there is no democracy,'' the human rights campaigner 
was quoted by the newspaper as saying in Birmingham, England. where 
he lives.  
 
"She thinks building the economic process is vital. Myanmar [Burma] has 
good resources."  
 
But Dhamma said Suu Kyi had brushed aside suggestions by the junta 
that she leaves the country for five years.  
 
"I will not leave Myanmar for five minutes, let alone five years,'' Suu Kyi 
was quoted by Dhamma as telling him.  
 
Dhamma said, ''She is so strong. She likes to do things steadily, just like 
her father [the founder of Burma's independence movement].  
 
''She is cheerful and healthy. Some people said she is thin but she was 
always thin."  
 
Dhamma, 62, who has lived away from Burma for 40 years and in Britain 
since 1975, has known Suu Kyi since she was  11.  
 
He commands deep respect from the top ranks of the military regime and 
has been chosen as an unofficial UN intermediary in solving human 
rights problems involving Aung San Suu Kyi, the newspaper said.