GNN News: Burma's Freed Suu Kyi Bla

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Subject: GNN News: Burma's Freed Suu Kyi Blasts Barricades.



		Burma's Freed Suu Kyi Blasts Barricades 
		***************************************

(December 5 1996, 8:49 AM EST)

RANGOON, Dec 5 (Reuter) - Burma's pro-democracy opposition leader Aung 
San Suu Kyi was
released from confinement at her Rangoon home on Thursday and promptly 
called for her country to
be excluded from the regional ASEAN bloc. 

Suu Kyi, leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), was permitted 
by military rulers to
attend a private wedding reception and a National Day celebration two 
days after she was confined.

She told reporters she had been illegally held at home. 

``But today I can come back (out),'' she said. ``That's fine. I am always 
prepared to compromise, if
they put a proposition to me in a civilized way.'' 

Party leaders had earlier called her confinement by the military State 
Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) ``virtual house arrest.'' 

SLORC officials were not immediately available for comment. National Day 
is a public holiday. 

The Nobel laureate and daughter of assassinated independence hero Aung 
San joined about 200
NLD members and supporters in a ceremony marking Burma's National Day at 
the home of an
NLD leader, reacalling her father's exploits and independence in 1948 in 
skits and speeches. 

Witnesses said police still kept roads leading to her lakeside house 
blocked off after she had
returned home. 

``As you know the barricades are up and down,'' she told reporters in a 
seemingly cheerful mood.
``It's quite ridiculous. On one hand it's something that's not 
acceptable, but on the other hand it's
sometimes quite amusing.'' 

The SLORC restricted Suu Kyi to her home indefinitely on Tuesday in the 
wake of demonstrations
by students of the Yangon Institute of Technology in Rangoon. 

``If we truly want law and order in this country, it has to be achieved 
through understanding, through
a political settlement,'' Suu Kyi told reporters at the wedding 
reception. 

SLORC has refused to hold a dialogue with the NLD, which won a landslide 
victory in the 1990
general election but was never allowed to govern. 

Suu Kyi urged the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) not to 
grant Burma full
membership as long as it is ruled by SLORC. She also said foreign 
sanctions may be imposed. 

ASEAN said at the end of its summit in Jakarta on Saturday that it would 
simultaneously admit
Burma, Laos and Cambodia as full members of the seven-member group, but 
did not say when. 

``As I have already said, one day Burma should be a member of ASEAN 
because we do belong to
the region,'' Suu Kyi said. ``But for Burma under SLORC to be part of 
ASEAN, it will do the
organization no credit at all.'' 

In answer to a question about the possibility of economic sanctions 
against Burma, she said: ``It
seems things are heading that way unless they do something to stop the 
repression.'' 

Diplomats said Suu Kyi's confinement reflected Rangoon's concern that she 
might be unknowingly
drawn into the 20-hour campus and street demonstration by up to 2,000 
students of the Yangon
Institute of Technology early this week. 

The protest, the biggest seen in the capital since mass uprisings in 
1988, was triggered by anger at
police handling of a brawl between students and restaurant owners in 
October. 

Suu Kyi, who was released from six years' house arrest in July last year, 
said the roadblocks near
the NLD headquarters, which were lowered later in the day, were 
apparently meant to stop the
party holding its meeting. 

``This is no way to settle problems. You can't keep problems blocked up. 
They will just erupt in the
end,'' she said. 

[GNN News, 5 December 1996].

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