AFP :US laments death of Dr. Aris,

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Subject: AFP :US laments death of Dr. Aris, blasts Myanmar

US laments death of Aris, blasts Myanmar
   
   WASHINGTON, March 27 (AFP) - The United States offered condolences
Saturday 
on the death of Michael Aris, husband of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San 
Suu Kyi, and slammed the Yangon government for refusing the couple a farewell 
meeting.
   US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had warm praise for Aris, who
died 
Saturday in a British hospital on his 53rd birthday after a bout with cancer.
   "A noted scholar, Dr. Aris has sacrificed the companionship of his beloved 
wife for 10 years so that she could stand with her people in Burma (Myanmar) 
to struggle for human rights and democracy," Albright said in a statement.
   The chief US diplomat sharply criticized Myanmar's government for having 
rebuffed international appeals to grant Aris permission to visit his wife a 
final time.
   "The authorities' callous disregard of the most basic humanitarian 
principles is emblematic of the continuing repression" in Myanmar, she said. 
"The honor exemplified by Dr. Aris in his life stands out all the more 
dramatically."
   In declining to grant Aris a visa, Yangon authorities had said they 
preferred Aung San Suu Kyi travel to see him.
   But supporters of the Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader, who was 
released from six years of house arrest in 1995, said she had declined to 
leave the country for fear she would be forced to stay in exile.
   Aung San Suu Kyi met British academic Aris in Britain in the early 1970s 
when she was studing at the London School for Oriental Studies and working
for 
the United Nations.
   They were married in 1972, and have two sons.