[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index ][Thread Index ]

NEWS - Aung San Suu Kyi Urges Dial



Subject: NEWS -  Aung San Suu Kyi Urges Dialogue, Honors Assassinated Father

Aung San Suu Kyi Urges Dialogue, Honors Assassinated Father

               AP
               19-JUL-99

               YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Wrapped in black mourning
               attire, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi paid
tribute
               to her father on the 52nd anniversary of his
assassination
               Monday while the military regime urged her party to
unseat
               her. 

               For the third straight Martyrs Day holiday, official
               newspapers balked at publishing what had once been a
               traditional special page on the life of Gen. Aung San,
Suu
               Kyi's father and hero of Myanmar's independence from
               Britain. 

               The official press -- the only kind allowed in Myanmar --
               claimed that the people "loathe" Aung San's daughter,
               winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, as a traitor.
               Newspapers urged her party, the National League of
               Democracy, to drive her out of politics. 

               Martyrs Day commemorates the assassination of Aung San,
               six ministers and two others who were machine-gunned
               during a Cabinet meeting July 19, 1947, in an attack
               orchestrated by a political rival and aided by renegade
               British intelligence officers. 

               In the only event of the year in which Suu Kyi is allowed
to
               take part in official ceremonies, she arrived in a black
sedan
               at the concrete Martyrs Mausoleum at the foot of the
capital
               Yangon's gilded Shwedagon Pagoda. 

               Dressed in a traditional black longyi, or sarong, a white
               jacket and black shawl, Suu Kyi, 54, bowed in front of
her
               father's tomb and placed three baskets of purple and
white
               orchids there. She then knelt and paid respects in the
               Buddhist tradition. 

               None of the top ruling generals of the ruling State Peace
and
               Development Council attended. Culture Minister Win Sein
               represented the government. 

               Afterwards, some 400 supporters greeted Suu Kyi at her
               party headquarters with chants and cheers. Tin Oo, the

               party vice chairman, read a statement urging the military
to
               engage the party in dialogue. 

               Under 37 years of military rule, Myanmar, also known as
               Burma, has gone from being one of the richest countries
in
               Southeast Asia to one of the poorest. The regime crushes
               dissent, and thousands of dissidents are in prison or
               otherwise detained. 

               Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy overwhelmingly
               won 1990 elections, but the military never let the
parliament
               meet. 

               She was freed from six years of house arrest in 1995, but
               has since made no headway in her requests for a dialogue
               to put the country on a more democratic course. The
               generals refuse to speak to her and denied her English
               husband a visa to see her before he died in March. 

               The military, which respects her father as a hero, calls
Suu
               Kyi a traitor, saying her success in getting foreign
nations to
               impose economic sanctions to force change have retarded
               development.