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Wired News: Suu Kyi downplays viol



Subject: Wired News:  Suu Kyi downplays violence threat (UPI)

By JOHN HAIL
   RANGOON, July 16 (UPI) -- Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi expressed
faith Sunday that a violent confrontation with the military can be avoided when she makes a
long-awaited public appearance to commemorate the assassination of her father.
   Suu Kyi, 50, has shied away from outside public gatherings since she was freed July 10
after nearly six years of house arrest.
   The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate has made several speeches, but only from within the
front gate of her family's Rangoon home.
   However, she confirmed Sunday that she had accepted an invitation from the ruling State
Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to attend a commemoration of Martyrs' Day
next Wednesday near the Shwedagon Pagoda in central Rangoon.
   The emotion-charged public holiday commemorates the 1947 assassination of her father,
Burmese independence hero General Aung San, and nine of his cabinet members shortly
before the country's de- colonization from Great Britain.
   Speaking to a small group of journalists invited into her home Sunday, Suu Kyi played
down fears that the event could spark a clash between her supporters and the military.
   "I think on the whole the people of Burma are very disciplined," she said. During the
anti-military demonstrations of 1988-89, she added, "we never, never had an undisciplined
crowd."
   She cautioned, however, that "there is a climate of mistrust in the country, and I think that's
very sad. This is why we need dialogue, negotiations and reconciliation."
   Since her unconditional release, Suu Kyi has called repeatedly for talks with the ruling
generals, but the government has ignored her pleas and imposed a local news blackout on
her statements and activities.
   She appeared unimpressed by the economic strides made by the SLORC since it put her
under house arrest in 1989 and voided an election won by her party, the National League for
Democracy, the following year.
   "I have not yet been to those places where they have all these high- rise buildings," she
said. "The first night I went out it was after dark and it was raining, so I didn't see a thing.
Nothing has changed very much where I have been. Some of the roads are wider. There are
more cars..."
   Suu Kyi expressed reservations about the SLORC-sanctioned boom in foreign investment,
particularly a multi-billion dollar pipeline, being built by the U.S. company Unocal and the
French company Total, intended to move natural gas from Burma's Gulf of Martaban to
energy-hungry Thailand.
   "I do not like anything that harms the people," she said. "And if the pipeline is really causing
great suffering to the people then it is not benefitting our country at all...Any project that makes
the people suffer is not one that I could support."
   She said she was particularly worried about reports that the military government has
employed slave labor in the pipeline project.
   "Of course I've heard of the gas pipeline and I've heard that there has been slave labor
used there," she said. "But I'd like to have my facts absolutely accurate before I would
comment on this."