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Reuters-FOCUS-Suu Kyi should visit



Subject: Reuters-FOCUS-Suu Kyi should visit dying husband - Myanmar 

FOCUS-Suu Kyi should visit dying husband - Myanmar
06:19 a.m. Mar 18, 1999 Eastern
YANGON, March 18 (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government said on Thursday
it was reviewing a visa request from the dying British husband of opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi but said it would be more sensible for her to visit
him.

``The government of Myanmar suggests that Ms Suu Kyi, who is in perfect
health, travel to England to respond to her husband's dying wish to see her.
She has so far refused to go,'' it said.

The military has long sought a way to get Suu Kyi, the biggest thorn in its
side for a decade, out of the country.

She has not left for the past 11 years, fearing she would not be allowed
back if she did. She appears unlikely to do so now, whatever the
circumstances.

Sources close to Suu Kyi's family say her husband, Michael Aris, an Oxford
academic who has been denied a visa to Myanmar for the past three years, is
dying from prostate cancer which has spread to his spine and lungs.

The government said in a statement it would provide Suu Kyi ``all possible
assistance'' to join her husband. It did not say if she would be allowed to
return if she did so.

``Dr Aris has requested a visa to visit Myanmar to see his wife, which the
government is currently reviewing,'' it said.

``Dr Aris' medical condition is extremely grave, however, and government
health authorities are surprised that he would request such a difficult trip
at this time,'' it said.

``To undertake a trip to Myanmar under such conditions... would appear to be
both irresponsible and inhumane, and the government is reluctant to
encourage or endorse such an action.''

The sources close to Suu Kyi's family said that even if Aris were granted a
visa he was not fit enough to travel. But he would do so if his condition
improved, despite fears he might not survive the journey.

The two have not seen one another since mid-1995, shortly after she was
released from six years of house arrest.

Tin Oo, vice chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, told
Reuters on Wednesday she was very worried about her husband but could not
leave Myanmar.

``The lady has been working hard for democracy, for the people and the
party, she is worried about him, but she will never leave the country

because she knows that if she does the military regime will never allow her
to return.''

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.

She is the daughter of Myanmar's foremost national hero Aung San who won
independence from Britain in the 1940s. She has shown a steely determination
to promote democracy since emerging as a dissident leader during a national
uprising in 1988.

Suu Kyi has shown her resolve in the past by enduring the lengthy house
arrest rather than go into exile.

Aris has said that when they married, Suu Kyi told him if it ever came to a
choice between family and country, she would have to put country first.

Myanmar's state media has called repeatedly in the past year for Suu Kyi to
leave or for the government to expel her.

The sources close to Suu Kyi's family said appeals on Aris's behalf had come
from Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the United Nations and the Sultan
of Brunei among others. Britain is also backing the visa request on
humanitarian grounds.

Complicating the issue is a Myanmar-European Union dispute over an EU ban on
visits by senior Yangon officials. Britain has been particularly vocal in
upholding this ban.