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Aung San Suu Kyi 'hopeful' (Sept 12
- Subject: Aung San Suu Kyi 'hopeful' (Sept 12
- From: tun@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 10:43:00
Subject: Aung San Suu Kyi 'hopeful' (Sept 12) The Nation
THE NATION I Monday September 12, 1994
Suu Kyi 'hopeful' Burmese junta may introduce reforms
Agence France-Presse
TOKYO-Dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi is guardedly optimistic
about the chances of reform in Burma but will not give in to demands
from the military junta to leave the country, an associate said.
Rewata Dhamma, an expatriate Burmese Buddhist priest, told the Yomiuri
newspaper that Aung San Suu Kyi, under house arrest since 1989, had
not recognized the junta's legitimacy but backed its moves to democracy.
"She wants to encourage them to meet democracy. She wants tto talk to
them, to carry out democracy, not work against them but together with
them," said Dhamma.
The priest was allowed to meet Aung San Suu Kyi in Rangoon on Aug 7
and 10.
"She regards reforms of the economy and education as very important,
as without them there is no democracy,'' the human rights campaigner
was quoted by the newspaper as saying in Birmingham, England. where
he lives.
"She thinks building the economic process is vital. Myanmar [Burma] has
good resources."
But Dhamma said Suu Kyi had brushed aside suggestions by the junta
that she leaves the country for five years.
"I will not leave Myanmar for five minutes, let alone five years,'' Suu Kyi
was quoted by Dhamma as telling him.
Dhamma said, ''She is so strong. She likes to do things steadily, just like
her father [the founder of Burma's independence movement].
''She is cheerful and healthy. Some people said she is thin but she was
always thin."
Dhamma, 62, who has lived away from Burma for 40 years and in Britain
since 1975, has known Suu Kyi since she was 11.
He commands deep respect from the top ranks of the military regime and
has been chosen as an unofficial UN intermediary in solving human
rights problems involving Aung San Suu Kyi, the newspaper said.