[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

Burma (r)



SUU KYI IN 2ND CLASH WITH MILITARY
lEADER FORCED TO SPEND THE NIGHT IN HER CAR
BANGKOK POST 7/26/98.

Burmese military and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi were engaged
in a standoff on a high way yesterday morning, nearly 24 hours after police
stopped the democracy campaigner's car as she tried to travel outside Rangoon.
 Ms.Suu Kyi, an aide and two drivers spent the night inside her white sedan
surrounded by barbed-wire barricades, sand bags and a contingent of
soldiers about 51 km west of the capital.
 This is the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner's third attempt this month to
travel outside Rangoon to meet members of her political party,the National
League for Democracy.
 The military government has stopped her every time. It denies she is under
house arrest or other unlawful restrictions.
 The military issued a statement yesterday that said Ms.Suu Kyi was
"bullheaded" and lacked a" humanitarian  
vision". It accused her of conspiring to "portray Burma as a lawless and
unstable country where the democratic forces are being suppressed".
 During an earlier attempt to travel freely outside the capital,more than
30 soldiers lifted the Nobel Laureate's white sedan with her inside it,and
turned it around to face Rangoon.
 On the previous two trips on July 7 and 20, a compromise was reached where
the military brought the party member Ms Suu Kyi was attempting to meet to
her car.
 Ms Suu Kyi's intention this time was to travel to Bassein, 160 km west of
Rangoon, in the Irrawaddy delta where local authorities are more repressive
than in some other parts of Burma.
 She was stopped near Anyarsu village at about 10.15 a.m. on Friday by
local police who called the military authorities.
 Her goal, as in previous journeys, was to meet with members of her party
voted into parliament.     
    *********************************************