AFP : DASSK expresses solidarity wi

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Subject: AFP : DASSK expresses solidarity with suffering Timorese

    Aung San Suu Kyi expresses solidarity with suffering Timorese

    BANGKOK, Oct 7 (AFP) - Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has 
expressed solidarity with the people of East Timor, comparing their 
sufferings with those of her own people.
    "What happened in East Timor is very similar to what happened in Burma 
(Myanmar) in 1990," she said in a video-taped interview, a transcript of 
which was received by AFP in Bangkok Thursday.
    Pro-Jakarta militias went on a bloody ramage in East Timor after an 
August 30 poll in which the territory's population voted overwhelmingly for 
independence from Indonesia, which invaded the former Portuguese colony in 
1975.
    "This is what happened in Burma. We had free and fair elections in 1990 
and the people voted for our party, the National league for Democracy 
(NLD)," Aung San Suu Kyi said.
    "But because the military regime did not want to accept the reults 
 ...they have been trying to overturn it through violence and intimidation."
    The interview was conducted in Yangon by representatives of an activist 
network of non-government organisations and academics known as the 
Alternative Asean Network on Burma.  Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won the 1990 
elections in a landslide, but the military refused to allow parliament to 
sit, launching a long-running campaign of repression against the party.  In 
the interview, the Nobel peace laureate described the junta's methods as 
"salami tactics," saying they had been cutting away at the opposition slice 
by slice, making international intervention less likely. A UN-mandated 
peacekeeping force began deploying in East Timor on September 20.
    "I think they (the international community) should understand that what 
has happened in Burma is no different from what has happened in East 
Timor," she said.
    "So we feel a great sense of empathy for the people of East Timor 
because we have suffered the same kinds of wrongs."
    Aung San Suu Kyi said she had a great deal of admiration for former 
guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao, widely expected to become independent East 
Timor's first president.
    "I think he'll have to come and visit me in Burma, he seems to be freer 
than I am," she said. (AFP)