Aung San Suu Kyi Confident of Event

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Aung San Suu Kyi confident of eventual victory
Fri 14 Aug 98 - 10:04 GMT
LONDON, Aug 14 (AFP) - Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is
confident of
eventually overcoming her country's military regime and believes "the tide of
history is with us",
she said in an interview broadcast here Friday.
Speaking to BBC radio last Sunday, before her car was blocked by security
forces as she tried
to meet members of her National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi
said: "I
don't believe in sitting and hoping, we have to work for it.
"I am confident that we will achieve democracy because the tide of history is
with us."
On Friday Aung San Suu Kyi entered the third day of her stand-off with
security forces on a
rural highway -- the fourth such protest in a month.
She is now in almost the same spot about 25 kilometres (15 miles) outside the
capital Yangon
where she held a six-day protest last month, but this time she is in a mini-
van rather than a
sedan and has brought extra supplies.
Her previous six-day standoff ended when the junta forcibly drove her home on
July 29.
In her BBC interview, Aung San Suu Kyi said: "The situation of the country is
such that the
military regime can really do nothing for the country and the people know that
change is
necessary.
"We've always been confident that we will achieve our goal eventually, it's a
matter of time. The
sooner the better of course because, the longer it takes, the more suffering
there is".
Meanwhile in Myanmar Friday 18 foreign activists went on trial for allegedly
breaching a
national security law which carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence.
The activists were rounded up Sunday handing out pamphlets urging people to
remember the
10th anniversary of a bloody military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators
on August
8, 1988.
The pamphlets also promoted human rights and democracy.
US congressman Chris Smith, a Republican from New Jersey who arrived in the
Thai capital
Bangkok Thursday on a mission to release the six US detainees, said he hoped
to travel to
Myanmar soon.
He was quoted by the BBC as saying: "I hope that the regime will see that this
is an explosive
public relations disaster in the making.
"They would then need to be moving towards dialogue with the pro-democracy
people in
Burma -- that would be the best case -- but to invite criticism and the angst
of the international
community is foolhardy."
The BBC also interviewed a Briton arrested for distributing pro-democracy
pamphlets and
freed from a Myanmar jail last week after three months.
James Rupert Russell Mawdsley described conditions in prison as "very dirty
 ... full of disease".
"But the main problem is the malice from the guards with rank, they'll do
whatever they can to
make your life difficult," he said, adding that "physically I am still a bit
sick but I am very happy
to be home."
He added he saw his main task while in prison as to support other pro-
democracy activists
jailed for up to 25 years.
"They've lost their homes, their families, their limbs or their lives. You
think about these people
and your own problems don't seem that big."
Asked if he thought he had been rash, he replied: "People who think it's
foolhardy just don't
understand how desperate the situation is, it really is terrible.
"If I have suffered for 98 days, that's certainly nothing compared to what's
going on in there and
it's certainly worth it."
But he said he would not be returning, as he had been told he would be jailed
for 10 years if he
was caught campaigning again.