Visits by doctors requested

[byva@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

Visits by doctors requested
                    for protesting Myanmar
                         opposition leader 

                              The Associated Press
                            08/17/98 4:56 PM Eastern

               YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- The National League for
               Democracy asked the government Monday to allow doctors
               to visit the party's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who is parked
               on a country road in the sixth day of a political protest. 

               Myanmar's military government blocked Suu Kyi on
               Wednesday as she tried to travel outside the capital to meet
               with party members, claiming the journey was unsafe. It was
               her fourth attempt in two months to challenge the military's
               restrictions on her movements. 

               Refusing to turn back, she has remained in a van parked on a
               small wooden bridge in the village of Anyarsu, 19 miles
               west of the capital. 

               Suu Kyi's party issued a news release saying it had asked the
               chairman of the country's ruling junta, Gen. Than Shwe, to
               allow the democracy campaigner's personal physicians to
               visit her. 

               Suu Kyi, 53, is accompanied by another member of her
               party's central executive committee, 75-year-old Hla Pe, and
               two drivers. The NLD said that if their supplies of food and
               water become insufficient, their health could deteriorate. 

               A similar sit-in last month ended after six days when the
               government seized Suu Kyi's car and forcibly drove her back
               to the capital. 

               There was no independent way to obtain information about
               Suu Kyi's current condition. Authorities control access to her
               van, and members of her party are having trouble keeping in
               touch with her. 

               The government's news releases have described Suu Kyi's
               action as a countryside camping trip in a "small, but
               picturesque" village. 

               It says it has given her a portable bathroom and other
               amenities, including "imported cakes, cookies and soft
               drinks" and a cassette player with music by Madonna and
               Michael Jackson. 

               There was no indication that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace
               laureate, had accepted the gifts. In previous roadside
               confrontations, she has refused to take anything from or even
               speak to security forces blocking her way. 

               Suu Kyi's party won 82 percent of the seats in parliament in
               a 1990 election that the military rulers of Myanmar, also
               known as Burma, refused to honor. 


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