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bbc-Suu Kyi's message of support fo



Subject: bbc-Suu Kyi's message of support for Timor 

Thursday, October 7, 1999 Published at 11:30 GMT 12:30 UK

World: Asia-Pacific

Suu Kyi's message of support for Timor

Aung San Suu Kyi: "Great sense of empathy "

The Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu
Kyi has sent a message of support to the East Timorese people.

In a videotaped interview smuggled out of Burma, the pro-democracy
campaigner compared the situation faced by her supporters in Burma to the
crisis in East Timor.

" We feel a great sense of empathy for the people of East Timor," she said.
"As fellow human beings, we don't like to see people so ill-treated and so
unjustly crushed in their own land."

Ms Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), scored an
overwhelming victory in elections held in Burma in 1990.

However, in a move she says has strong parallels with the recent violence in
East Timor, Burma's military government refused to recognise the result and
detained hundreds of opposition activists including Ms Suu Kyi herself.

Militia violence

August's massive vote in favour of independence in East Timor was followed
by weeks of violence in which pro-Indonesian militias went on the rampage
supported by Indonesian troops.

Those opponents of East Timorese independence, Ms Suu Kyi said, had "tried
to overturn the result of the election in one fell swoop. [But] the world
became aware of it and would not stand for it."

"I think they should understand that what happened in Burma is no different
than what happened in East Timor," she said, "only it was implemented in the
rather different way so that it's less noticeable."

She went on to express her admiration for the former East Timorese rebel
leader Xanana Gusmao, who was released from jail in Jakarta last month.

She said she felt Mr Gusmao was "a personal friend", although the two have
never met, and thanked him for his words of support. She added that she
hoped "the time will come when we can all work together to promote democracy
and human rights in Asia and the rest of the world."

Mr Gusmao is widely expected to become the first president of an independent
East Timor.

Ms Suu Kyi was officially freed after six years in house arrest in1995, but
says she will not leave Burma as if she did so it is unlikely the Burmese
government would allow her to return.

Her movements and those of her fellow NLD members remain heavily restricted.
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