Wired News: SLORC keeping quiet

[BAS1+aDARMOK%CooperWhite@xxxxxxxxxxx]

    By Deborah Charles
     RANGOON, July 12 (Reuter) - Two days after freeing opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
Burma's military government on Wednesday still refused to tell the nation, apparently trying
to play down its importance.
     The Southeast Asian country's official media has made no mention of her surprise release
on Monday despite the 50-year-old Nobel Peace laureate's public appearance before the
world's press at her home on Tuesday.
     "We have no announcement," a senior information ministry official told Reuters on
Wednesday. "It is of no concern to us. That is a private affair so we do not plan to cover it."
     Diplomats speculated the tight-lipped attitude of the military government was an attempt to
belittle the charismatic leader's importance.
     This was despite the government's request to her that she help towards achieving peace
and stability across the country in Monday's official notification to her that it was lifting nearly
six years of house arrest.
     The attitude seems to echo a message from powerful intelligence chief
Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt last Friday.
     In a speech setting out the military government's long-term goals, he said the rights of
Burma's 45 million people are more important than those of "any single person."
     The front page of Wednesday's state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper seemed to
confirm that line. In a quarter page box the government again outlined its political, economic
and social objectives.
      It called for stability of the state, peace and tranquility, national reconciliation and the
building of a modern nation in accordance with a new constitution.
     Sections already agreed by a government-appointed body drawing up the new charter
rule out Suu Kyi ever becoming Burma's leader because she is married to a foreigner, and
guarantee the military a "leading role" in politics.
     Diplomats also said the blackout might be an attempt to stave off any possible reaction by
jubilant pro-democracy supporters.
     "You can speculate it is to keep interest dampened and not make it widespread," one
diplomat said. "But news travels fast here, by now it's all over Rangoon."
     He said it was ironic that international newscasts -- some of which are beamed into Burma
via satellite -- had Suu Kyi as the top story while official Burmese radio and television
reported on a Buddhist holiday and a new agriculture project.
     One Rangoon resident, who heard the news on a BBC broadcast on Monday, said the
government's effort to suppress the news was futile.
     "They want to close everybody's eyes and ears. They want to control everybody," he
said. "But we know. We love Aung San Suu Kyi."
     Although Suu Kyi, who was put under house arrest on July 20, 1989, held an hour-long news
conference at her lakeside home on Tuesday, she has not left her compound to talk with the
hordes of supporters outside.
     Suu Kyi clearly wanted to show her appreciation to her many supporters, but was hesitant
to go outside her gates probably because she feared her appearance might lead to a
demonstration or uprising, diplomats said.
     Instead she made a brief speech from inside her gates, peering over the walls of the
compound that had been her prison for the past six years.
     She told the applauding crowd she was still a member of the National League for
Democracy which she helped found, and promised she had not betrayed them in return for
her release.
     Most of the hundreds of people who had gone to her house heard the news of her release
either by word of mouth or through BBC radio and television programmes broadcast here.
     Crowds had dwindled in front of her house on Wednesday, partly because it was a regular
workday. Tuesday had been a Buddhist holiday. There were about four uniformed
policemen guarding the gates.
 REUTER