AFP-Suu Kyi warns frustration could

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Subject: AFP-Suu Kyi warns frustration could turn violent on Myanmar junta

Suu Kyi warns frustration could turn violent on Myanmar junta
BANGKOK, Oct 7 (AFP) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has warned
frustration within the ranks of democracy activists and the general
population was building and could turn violent.
The comments by the National league for Democracy (NLD) leader come after
gunmen, claiming to be pro-democracy students, last week stormed Yangon's
embassy in Bangkok, taking hostages and demanding the junta open talks with
the opposition.

"I think we can say that resentment is growing all the time," she said in a
video-taped interview on October 5, a transcript of which was sent to AFP
here Thursday.

"And will it explode into violence? That is a possibility. And of course we
are concerned about this, we don't want change to come about through
violence."

The interview was conducted in Yangon by members of an activist group of
non-government organisations and academics known as the Alternative Asean
Network on Burma.

Aung San Suu Kyi repeated earlier NLD denials of involvement in the Bangkok
hostage drama, but said she understood what had driven the gunmen to storm
the embassy last Friday.

"We understand why these young students felt that they had to do something
like this. It's because of some sense of frustration, it's because they have
been subjected to great injustice, it's because they want democracy to come
quickly to Burma," she said.

"We have to face this kind of situation from day to day in Burma," she
added, referring to the regular detention of party members and officials by
the ruling military.

"But what we want to say to them (the student gunmen) is that what we are
fighting is the use of arms to bring about political change."

Five gunmen, claiming to be pro-democracy students, stormed Myanmar's
embassy here last week, taking nearly 40 hostages, including diplomats, and
holding them for more than 24-hours, before Thai authorities bowed to
demands for an escape helicopter to the border.

In the interview Aung San Suu Kyi also 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.

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.

"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," 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."

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.

Aung San Suu Kyi 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.

"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."

A UN-mandated peacekeeping force began deploying in East Timor on September
20.

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.