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Aung San Suu Kyi running low on sup



Aung San Suu Kyi running low on supplies as showdown enters third day

AFP Rangoon, 26 August 2000. Myanmar's junta is preventing food and water 
from reaching
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as her showdown with the authorities 
outside Yangon
enters a third day, her party said Saturday.

The National League for Democracy (NLD) said Aung San Suu Kyi and her 
entourage were fast
running out of supplies and they appealed for help from the local people in 
the township where the
group was halted Thursday.

"We demand that the blockade be immediately removed and the NLD leaders be 
allowed to proceed
to their desired destination," the NLD's central executive committee said 
in a letter of complaint sent
to the regime.

"If the health of those being blocked be impaired by lack of food and water 
 ... this is the entire
responsibility of those who have stopped them."

Aung San Suu Kyi sparked the stand-off Thursday when she travelled outside 
Yangon in
defiance of a ban which confines her to the capital.

It was her first attempt to travel outside Yangon since a dramatic 13-day 
confrontation
on a bridge north-west of the capital in August 1998 which ended amid fears 
for her health.

The Myanmar government said the Nobel laureate was travelling without 
property security
precautions and had been stopped for her own safety.

Every effort was being made to "ensure the comfort and safety" of the 
party, it said in
a statement.

"Until safety conditions improve, Daw Suu Kyi is visiting Dallah, a small 
but charming
town which is just ten minutes by boat from Yangon," it said.

"In case of emergency the government has provided Daw Suu Kyi with an 
ambulance
from Yangon with one physician and six medical attendants remaining nearly 
around
the clock to ensure maximum comfort and welfare."

The NLD won a crushing victory in 1990 elections but the results have never 
been
recognised by the military, which has carried out a campaign of 
intimidation against
the opposition since the student uprisings of 1988.

The military has been in control of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in 
various
guises since 1962.