 |
 |
| Published in Washington, D.C. July 17, 1995 |
Vengeance not priority of freed Burmese Nobel laureate
By Richard S. Ehrlich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
RANGOON, Burma
Aung San Suu Kyi said yesterday she prefers "reconciliation" to "vengeance" against the military regime that kept her under house arrest for six years.
But the Nobel Peace laureate said in a meeting with journalists at her home that she will investigate reports that the military used slave labor in various projects.
She also said the United States was free to decide whether to toughen a boycott against Burma if human-rights abuses continue and democracy is not allowed.
Dressed in a white blouse fastened by embroidered buttons, and a brown wraparound "longi" skirt decorated with a white snowflake design, Mrs. Suu Kyi, 50, met a small group of journalists for 45 minutes inside the waterfront house where she was jailed until her release July 10.
"In 1992, when my family came to visit me for the first time after two years, I found I had difficulty speaking English fluently," said the Oxford-educated leader of the National League for Democracy.
"I had not spoken English" while cut off from the outside world, and "I was stuttering all the time because I couldn't get the words out and couldn't think of the words.
"There were moments when I felt: I can take it. I'm alone. I'm under detention. But I'm at peace within myself and I am strong.
"I had these periods when I would feel this tremendous surge of -- I suppose they would call it spiritual strength -- and those were the best times.
"Of course I was depressed sometimes," she added.
"People like Nelson Mandela inspired me. I thought, 'Well, if he could take it for 27 years...'"
She had been told at first the military would keep her for only three years.
"First it was three, so I said, 'OK, what's three?' Then it was five, so I said, "OK, what's five? Then they said six, so I said, 'What's six?'"
When asked by The Washington Times if she would give amnesty to the military regime if she came to power -- based on the 1990 landslide election victory by her NLD party -- Mrs. Suu Kyi replied, "It is very dangerous to discuss things prematurely. Everything is open to negotiation and discussion."
She added, "We need dialogue and negotiations and reconciliation."
She stressed, "My will is to not work with vengeance in mind." The future must be guided by "justice tempered by mercy."
Asked about widespread allegations that the regime used slave labor on various construction projects, including infrastructure linked to a gas pipeline financed by U.S. and French companies, Suu Kyi said, "I have heard of the gas pipeline and I have heard that there has been slave labor used there, but I would like to have my facts absolutely accurate before I would comment on this."
Total and Unocal denied forced labor was being used on the actual pipeline.
The U.N. special rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights, Yozo Yokota, said in 1994, "I am gravely concerned at the continued reports of forced porterage, forced labor, forced relocation, arbitrary killings, beatings, rapes and confiscation of property by the army soldiers which are most commonly occurring in the border areas where the army is engaged in military operations or 'regional development projects'."