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Reuter: Suu Kyi Could not Go to Den



Subject: Reuter: Suu Kyi Could not Go to Denmark 

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Could not Go to Denmark 

    By Steve Weizman
     COPENHAGEN, July 12 (Reuter) - Danish Prime Minister Poul Nyrup
Rasmussen's Social Democrats said on Friday that Burmese democracy
campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi declined an invitation to speak at their party
congress, saying she was unable to travel.
     A party spokesman quoted a letter from Suu Kyi to Rasmussen saying
that the Nobel peace laureate could not go abroad, "due to the present
circumstances." He said that her letter did not give further details.
     "It is with sorrow, but no great surprise, that I have received Aung
San Suu Kyi's regrets. This only underlines how intolerable conditions are
in Burma," Rasmussen said in a statement.
     Suu Kyi spent six years under house arrest from 1989 after the
military State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) took power and
supressed the nationwide democracy movement.
     She neverthless managed to lead her National League for Democracy
(NLD) to victory in May 1990 elections but the SLORC refused to hand over
power.
     A renewed crackdown brought the detention of 250 NLD members last May
and the arrest, imprisonment and subsequent death of Suu Kyi's godfather,
Denmark's honorary consul James Leander Nichols, who also represented
Finland, Norway and Switzerland.
     Copenhagen and Oslo have led protests since Nichols' death in a
Rangoon jail last month. A 65-year-old diabetic with a heart condition, he
was serving a three-year jail term for operating home telephones and fax
machines without permission.
     Denmark is campaigning for international sanctions against Burma. EU
president Ireland on Monday took up Denmark's call for "a full and
satisfactory explanation" of Nichols's death and an investigation by the
United Nations.
     Denmark has placed the matter on the agenda of the EU foreign
minister's meeting in Brussels on July 15.
     On Thursday Norway said Nichols' jailers tortured him and it held the
military government responsible for his death.
     Both Denmark and Norway have called Rangoon's London ambassador, who
covers Scandinavia, to their capitals. He was expected at the Norwegian
foreign ministry on Monday,  Deputy Foreign Minister Jan Egeland told
Reuters.
     "We will tell the ambassador that the human rights situation in Burma
must be drastically improved. We will ask for an official explanation into
Mr Nichols death and we will renew our request for an independent autopsy,
which so far has been denied," Egeland said.
     A Copenhagen pressure group - The Danish Burma Committee - on Friday
said it planned an extensive consumer boycott campaign against major Danish
companies operating in Burma.
     "We plan to mount a major media campaign starting mid-August, bringing
the public's attention to Danish companies operating in Burma and urging
consumers to boycott their products," committee chairman Anton Johannsen
told Reuters.
     Johannsen said the campaign, mainly in Danish newspapers, would
initially be aimed at shipping and wholesale group East Asiatic Company,
toymaker Lego and timber importer DLH.
  REUTER
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