SUU KYI WELCOMES SANCTIONS BY US

[shar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

SUU KYI WELCOMES SANCTIONS BY US

Rangoon, April 25: Burmese Opposition leader Aung San
Su7u Kyi on Friday praised the United States for
standing by its convictions and imposing economic
sanctions on Burma because of the military government's
human rights record.

The Nobel Peace laureate, one of the most vocall
proponents of economic sanctions, said President Bill
Clinton and the US Congress should have a clear
conscience that they made the right decision in banning
all new investment in the country. "I respect
Clinton...It is good to know there are people in this
world who are serious about what they say," Ms Suu Kyi
said in her first formal comment since sanctions were
inposed.

Washington on Tuesday banned new investment in Burma as
a public condemnatiojn of human rights abuses and the
military regime's repression of the democracy movement
led by Suu Kyi.

When the bill was introduced in Congress it was made
quite clear that sanctions would come in of there is
learge scale repression of the movement for democracy
in Burma," Ms Suu Kyi said.

"And I think all of you who have been following event
here over the last five or six months would know that
repression has increased rather than decreased," she
told reporters who gathered at a home near her house
for a hastily arranged news conference.

Access to Ms Suu Kyi's house is off limits to reporters
and others by barricades erected by the military
government. Ms Suu Kyi, whose National League for
Democracy party won ecections in 1990 but has been
barred from taking up government, said the US decision
had come at the right time because of increased
repression.

Thousands of NLD supporters have been arrested, some of
whom have been released, since last year as part of the
government's crackdown on the democracy movement. Ms
Suu Kyi said the authorities in the ruling State Law
and Order Restoration Council had recently moved jailed
NLD members, including her personal assistant U, Win
Htein, to prisons outside Rangoon and away from their
families. (REUTER)

News and Information Berau All Burma Students League.
(END)