NEWS - More than 1,000 attend cerem

[Rangoonp@xxxxxxx]

Subject: NEWS - More than 1,000 attend ceremony for Aung San Suu Kyi's husband

South China Morning Post - Friday  April 2  1999

Burma
More than 1,000 attend ceremony for Aung San Suu Kyi's husband

AGENCIES
Updated at 2.34pm:
More than 1,000 well-wishers attended a Buddhist ceremony at Myanmar
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's home on Friday to mark the seventh
day
of mourning for her husband.

Fifty-three monks chanted prayers at Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's lakeside
Rangoon
home for Michael Aris, a British academic who died on his 53rd birthday
on
Saturday of prostate cancer.

The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner, who is the military government's
strongest political opponent, made no public statement and refrained
from
speaking with supporters, taking time only to shake hands with several
diplomats.

Ambassadors and other diplomats from the United States, European
countries
and Japan attended. The only Southeast Asian nation that sent a diplomat
was the Philippines, which had urged Burma's military government to
grant
Aris a visa.

Also present in Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's compound was Kyi Maung, formerly
the
vice chairman of her political party, the National League for Democracy,
who had become estranged from the party leadership during the past two
years.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, without the trademark flower in her hair, offered
saffron robes to the monks as part of the Buddhist merit-making
tradition.

The gathering was probably the largest at Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's home
since
her release from house arrest by the military four years ago,
well-wishers
said.

''I am glad that I can come to give moral support and encouragement to
her
at this time of sorrow,'' said one.

There were security checkpoints along the road leading to Ms Aung San
Suu
Kyi's house but visitors were allowed through.

The ruling military-dominated State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)
did not grant Aris a visa despite a last-ditch attempt to see his wife
before he died.

Instead, it said Ms Aung San Suu Kyi could go to England, an offer she
refused for fear of not being allowed to return.

The military has increased pressure on Ms Aung San Suu Kyi and the NLD
since she demanded the government convene a people's parliament elected
in
1990 polls which the military has refused to recognise.


There is a temporary political truce during mourning which can last from
seven to 100 days.