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NEWS - Americans held in Myanmar sa
Americans held in Myanmar said to be in good health
August 12, 1998
Web posted at: 3:03 a.m. EDT (0703 GMT)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S.
State Department called Tuesday for
the prompt release of six Americans
detained in Myanmar and said the six
appeared to be in good health.
A U.S. diplomat visited the Americans
on Tuesday and found them "in good
health. They had no complaint about
their treatment and appear to have
been treated humanely," deputy
spokesman James Foley said.
Foley said the United States does not believe the six have
been
charged and has no information on possible charges. "And
again,
we continue to urge the Burmese (Myanmar) government to
release the detainees promptly," he said.
The Americans were among 18 foreigners detained by
Myanmar's
military government last Sunday pending an investigation.
The detentions took place after foreign activists handed
out leaflets
at prominent tourist sites across Yangon calling on
Myanmar's
citizens to remember a 1988 uprising in which opposition
supporters said thousands of people were killed. The
military put
the death toll at a few dozen.
The U.S. embassy in the capital Yangon made gaining
release of
the detainees a priority and said a U.S. consular officer
intended to
visit the detainees regularly, Foley said.
He said the State Department did not have complete
information
about the activities of the Americans or their purpose in
travelling
to Myanmar, formerly called Burma.
"We're really concerned about getting them out. And we've
made
that very clear to the Burmese authorities," he said.
The State Department did not release the names of the
detained
Americans, but the prisoners were identified in press
reports.
The Washington Post said four of them -- Nisha Marie
Anand, 21,
Anjannette Hamilton, 20, Michele Keegan, 19, and Sapna
Chhatpar, 20 -- were students at American University in
Washington D.C., where Myanmar opposition leader Aung San
Suu Kyi's husband spoke earlier this year. The other two
were
identified as Tyler Giannini, 28, and Joel Greer, 34.
Hamilton was able to fax a letter to her parents via the
U.S.
embassy, in which she said was fine.
"They are treating us well, but I miss you," Hamilton
wrote in the
letter, according to WRC-TV.
Her mother, Alison Hamilton, told the local NBC affiliate,
she had
not known whether her daughter was dead or alive until she
received the letter.
"This morning after getting her fax, we heard from the
lady over in
the embassy in Rangoon who had actually been the person
who
went to see these kids, so she reassured us that the kids
were
being treated very well," Hamilton said.