Suu Kyi Returns Home

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Myanmar Dissident Returns Home

 .c The Associated Press 

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi returned home
unharmed today after a nearly 24-hour standoff with police on a road outside
the capital. 

Testing the military junta's edict that prevents her from leaving Yangon
unescorted, Suu Kyi, the winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, had driven 50
miles north of the capital to meet a member of her National League for
Democracy party. 

Police at the scene told Suu Kyi and the three others in her car to return to
Yangon, but she rejected the order. Local officials then called in 30
soldiers, who lifted the care - with the passengers inside - and turn it
around to face toward the capital, a high-ranking party official said. 

Neither Suu Kyi, 53, nor the others in the car were harmed, the party sources
said. 

Suu Kyi had planned to tell Hla Hla Moe, a party member elected in 1990 to a
parliament the military never allowed to convene, to stop meeting demands by
local authorities to check in twice a day, the party sources said. Hla Hla Moe
is based in the northern township of Min Hla. 

Suu Kyi's activities are tightly restricted. The trip outside her home without
a customary security forces escort, followed by her refusal to return when
stopped, challenged the military government which is already under pressure
internationally to permit civilian rule. 

Last month, her party for the first time set a deadline, Aug. 21, for the
government to convene the 1990 parliament. The NLD overwhelmingly won those
elections but the ruling generals, whose supporters lost the vote, never
allowed parliament to meet. 

Since the NLD demand, the government has required the members-elect living
outside the capital to report twice a day to local authorities. Those who
refuse have reportedly been detained. 

It was the second time since she was released in 1995 from six years of formal
house arrest that Suu Kyi has tried to leave Yangon. In 1996, she tried taking
a train north to Mandalay, but the coach she would have ridden was removed
from service. 

Suu Kyi has again been restricted to her home since 1996 but is occasionally
allowed to meet small groups of supporters and receive some visitors. She is
barred from making speeches. 

The military has ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1962. 

AP-NY-07-08-98 0823EDT