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Bangkok Post(30/4/99) (r)



<center><bold>Democracy will return, says Suu Kyi 

</bold></center><bold>End of junta rule predicted within the next ten
years. 

</bold>  Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has battled
military rule for more than a decade, says she does not think it will
take another 10 years to achieve democracy.


" The way is always forward. I Don't think it will be another 10,"  

She said in an interview in Rangoon on Wednesday. 

" But I can only say that this is my opinion.  I am not a prophet, I am
not an astrologer , and it's just my opinion that it won't take another
10 years. 

" I think nobody could have predicted, for example, when negotiations
could have come about between the Palestinians and the Israelis, or
between the white government and the ANC," she said, referring to South
Africa's African National Congress. 

" It just happens and sometimes it takes longer and sometimes it doesn't
take so long and it's only in retrospect that people say they knew this
was coming...one can never tell in politics,24 hours can be a long time,
or 24 years can be nothing." 


The 1991 Nobel Peace laureate showed no loss of resolve despite the death
a month ago of her British husband Michael Aris, from whom she had been
separated by military restriction for all of the last three  years and
most of the past 10. 

She said her opinion of the government's refusal to grant him a visa to
see her a final time was a private matter. 

I won't discuss that. I won't tell you how I feel." 


A colleague in her National League for Democracy (NLD) said earlier she
was angered by the military stance but remained willing to enter a
dialogue. 

" The way in which the government has persecuted the NLD has won us a lot
of public sympathy. It's swings and roundabouts.  We break even because
what we lose in the active strength of our party we gain in public
support."

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