Today's New York Times 27/3/99

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Myanmar Opposition Leader's Husband Dies, Denied a Last Visit

New York Times By Seth Mydans
Bankok, Thailand, March 27

Michael Aris, the British husband of the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung
San Suu Kyi, died of cancer today in London after being denied permission by
Burmese authorities to pay a last visit to her.
Mr. Aris, 53, a noted scholar of Tibet at Oxford, had cared for the couple's
two teenage sons in Britain since his wife took on her political role in1988
and remained in Myanmar, the former Burma.
In interviews. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has said that the loss of contact with her
husband and of her chance to be a mother to her sons was one of the sacrifices
she had been forced to make to lead the opposition.
It is a sacrifice her husband said she had warned him she might one day make,
from the early yeas of their marriage- and one in which he supported her. He
has occasionally released statements abroad on her behalf, and together with
their sons, accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for her Oslo in 1991.
Mr. Aris had received only periodic permission to visit his wife over the past
10 years, six years of which she was under house arrest. She remains under
strict Government control in the capital, Yangon (formerly Rangoon), as the
military continues a campaign of harassment and imprisonment against her
party, the National League for Demoncracy.
In recent weeks Mr. Aris, who was in the late stages of prostate cancer, had
petitioned the Governemtn of Myanmar to allow him to visit her.
The Government denied his request, saying it would make more sense for the
healthy wife to visit the sick husband. It also said Myanmar could not provide
adequate medical care to a man in his condition.
But Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi had made it clear she would not leave Myanmar for
fear  the Government would not let her return.
She issued a statement today saying, "On behalf of my sons, Alexander and Kim,
as well as in my own behalf, I want to thank all those around the world who
have supported my husband during his illness."
In an unusual move, her statement was disseminated by the American Embassy in
Myanmar, which telephoned it to reports abroad. The embassy has been a strong
supporter of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi and the pro-democracy movement.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi met Mr. Aris while a student at Oxford. They married in
1972. The Government of Myanmar has questioned her patriotism in marrying a
foreigner.
It was a visit to her dying mother in 1998 that brought Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi
to Myanmar at the time of a pro-demoncracy uprising that wad crushed by the
military at the cost of hundreds of lives.
The daughter of the country's independence hero, Gen. Aung San, who was
assassinated in 1947, she took the leading position in the new demoncratic
opposition, which overwhelmingly won an election in 1990 that was then
annulled by the Junta.
In an introduction to a collection of his wife's writings called "Freedom From
Fear" (Penguin Books, 1991), Mr. Aris said her decision to stay in Myanmar
"came as no surprise." "The promise to support her decision, which I had given
in advance so many years ago, now had to be fulfilled," he wrote.
Mr. Aris described a visit to his wife in 1998. " The days I spent alone with
her that last time, completely isolated from the world, are among my happiest
memories of our many years of marriage," he wrote, adding: " We had all the
time in the world to talk about many things. I did not suspect this was the
last time we would be together for the foreseeable furture."