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| Published in Washington, D.C. September 15, 2000 |
Suu Kyi released from house arrest
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
BANGKOK, Thailand
Burma's military regime yesterday freed Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi after two weeks of house arrest and said it was also lifting restrictions on top officials of her party.
"Since noon today, those senior [National League for Democracy] members are no longer required to stay at their respective residences," the government announced.
The decision ends for now the latest crisis between Burma's isolated military regime and the opposition forces led by Mrs. Suu Kyi, who has won international support for her campaign for human rights and democratic freedoms in the Southeast Asian nation.
But Mrs. Suu Kyi, 55, and senior NLD officials said yesterday they plan to test the regime's intentions immediately, announcing plans to reopen the party's sealed headquarters today. Party Vice Chairman Tin Oo told the Associated Press in Rangoon that party leaders will also try again to travel outside the capital for party work -- the very action that provoked the latest confrontation.
"We will find out if we will be allowed freedom of movement," Mr. Tin Oo said.
The regime in a low-key statement "expressed its appreciation for the cooperation of the senior NLD members for staying at home," and regretted "the inconvenience caused to those involved."
The government kept Mrs. Suu Kyi trapped in her lakeside villa in Rangoon, also known as Yangon, since Sept. 1, when authorities escorted her home after she attempted to leave the capital to meet with provincial party allies.
During a standoff along the highway, which began Aug. 24, Mrs. Suu Kyi and NLD party officials staged a sit-down strike in their vehicles for nine days.
Burma, which the military rulers refer to as Myanmar, has one of the world's worst records on human rights, including executions, imprisonment, torture and forced labor, according to the U.S. government and private human rights groups.
British and U.S. diplomats based in Rangoon met Mrs. Suu Kyi yesterday afternoon at her home. A British diplomat said in a radio interview that the dissident was "well in mind" and in good spirits.
The British envoys said the slight Mrs. Suu Kyi looked as if she lost even more weight during her ordeal.
During her detention, security forces raided her home and carted away documents that they apparently hoped would link her to foreign plots to destabilize the country.
Mrs. Suu Kyi has always denied such activities, and insists her campaign for democracy is non-violent.
But her calls for an international boycott of investment in Burma and a halt to tourism have angered the government.
Last week, Rangoon attempted to deflect world opinion away from its campaign against Mrs. Suu Kyi by attacking the U.S. handling of the espionage case of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born American nuclear scientist.
"A brilliant scientist" was "dumped unceremoniously in a dungeon somewhere in America, for a framed-up charge," proclaimed a two-day commentary that concluded on Sept. 7 in the official newspaper, New Light of Myanmar.
Mrs. Suu Kyi was blamed by the unelected junta for having "created" terrorist attacks by minority ethnic Karen guerrillas, who crossed the border into Thailand and attacked the Burmese embassy and a Thai hospital during the past year.