Wired News: DASSK unbowed after co

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Subject: Wired News:  DASSK unbowed after confinement

   RANGOON, July 12 (UPI) -- Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi Wednesday
spent her second day of freedom meeting foreign journalists and other visitors at the
lakeside compound where she spent nearly six years under house arrest.
   Suu Kyi, who was freed unexpectedly Monday by the country's ruling military junta, earlier
delivered her first political speech in six years to a large crowd in front of her home.
   "I will continue my efforts to achieve the aspirations of the people," she told a wildly
cheering crowd late Tuesday night.
   Standing on top of the seven-foot-high (3-meter) gateway in front of her house, she called on
her supporters to display discipline, courage, sincerity and generosity of spirit.
   "Only in this way shall we be able to achieve our aims and aspirations," she said. 
   She also asked the people of Burma to support the measures taken in their interest by her
three top colleagues in the National League for Democracy: former party president and army
general Tin U, party central committee member, caretaker leader and colonel Kyi Maung,
and current party president and former brigadier general Aung Shwe. 
   All three opposition leaders were with Suu Kyi Tuesday when she made her first public
appearance since she was confined on July 20, 1989 by the ruling State Law and Order
Restoration Council (SLORC).
   At the news conference at her family's Rangoon home Suu Kyi, 50, displayed the same
charisma and strength of will that catapulted her to worldwide prominence during the
pro-democracy demonstrations that erupted in 1988 and won her the Nobel Peace Prize in
1991.
   She made it clear that her long confinement had not weakened her determination to
continue her struggle to bring democracy to Burma.
   "I would like to take this opportunity to urge the authorities to release those of us who still
remain in prison," she said. "I am happy to be able to say that in spite of all that they have
undergone, the forces for democracy in Burma remain strong and dedicated. I on my part
bear no resentment against anybody for anything that happened during the last six years."
   She compared Burma's struggle for democracy to South Africa's successful campaign for
majority rule and called on Rangoon's military authorities to take part in peaceful dialog.
   Before the news conference Suu Kyi had made her first journey outside the family
compound to visit Rangoon's majestic Shwedagon Pagoda, which was lit and decorated for
the day's Buddhist Lent celebrations. 
   In one of the first public reactions to her release by Burmese political activists, the All Burma
Students' Democratic Front issued a statement late Tuesday questioning the motives of the
junta.
   The front, one of several groups of democracy activists operating in exile or in rebel-held
enclaves in Burma, said the analogy between Suu Kyi and South African former prisoner and
current president Nelson Mandela was flawed.
   "We fervently hope...that the Burmese democratic resistance is about to embark on a South
African-like process involving a negotiated return to democratic Burma," the statement said.
"However, we must examine the possibility, indeed the probability, that there is another much
less hopeful motive behind SLORC's release of Aung San Suu Kyi. 
   "After nearly seven years of consolidating its rule, SLORC may now believe its power is so
deeply entrenched that it has nothing to fear from Aung San Suu Kyi."
   
   
  Copyright 1995 The United Press International