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Reuters-Suu Kyi husband gravely ill



Subject: Reuters-Suu Kyi husband gravely ill, seeking Myanmar visa 

Suu Kyi husband gravely ill, seeking Myanmar visa
08:20 a.m. Mar 17, 1999 Eastern
By David Brunnstrom
BANGKOK, March 17 (Reuters) - The British husband of Myanmar opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi is gravely ill with cancer and seeking a visa from
Yangon's military government to visit his wife, sources close to the family
said on Wednesday.
The sources, who did not want to be identified by name, said academic
Michael Aris was suffering from prostate cancer that had spread to his spine
and lungs and was not expected to live long.
The Yangon government, which is eager to see Suu Kyi leave the country, has
refused to issue Aris a visa for the past three years.
The sources said negotiations to issue a visa to Aris, who was in hospital
in Britain, were continuing but Yangon had indicated Suu Kyi should be the
one to travel.
``They have said that it is for the sick person to be visited,'' one of the
sources said, adding that it was unlikely Suu Kyi would leave Myanmar as she
did not believe she would be allowed to return. The spokesman for the Yangon
government could not immediately be reached for comment.
The source said Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the United Nations and
the Sultan of Brunei had made appeals to the Myanmar government to grant
Aris a visa.
``Michael is not expected to survive,'' said another of the sources. ``He is
desperate to get in to see her to say goodbye for the last time. But he
would have to be accompanied by a nurse and might not even survive the
journey.''
At the moment, the other source said, Aris was not fit enough to travel.
``The prognosis is not good. The cancer has spread into the spine and lungs.
He's undergoing therapy in hospital. There are negotiations going on for a
possible visa.
``It seems unlikely the visa will be granted, but this would be a golden
opportunity for the (Myanmar) government to display a humanitarian
gesture,'' he said.
Suu Kyi, the daughter of the man who led the country to independence and
leader of Myanmar's main opposition party, the National League for Democracy
(NLD), has been the biggest thorn in the military government's side since
since emerging as a dissident leader at the height of pro-democracy uprising
in 1988.

The military took power that year by bloodily crushing the uprising, then
ignored the result of a 1990 general election the NLD won by a landslide.
There have been repeated calls in Myanmar's state media in the past year for
Suu Kyi to leave the country or for the government to expel her.
Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her courage in standing up
to military rule, has not left Myanmar since she returned to Yangon in early
1988 to nurse her dying mother.