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Suu Kyi says she will travel outside Yangon on Thursday |
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September 21, 2000
YANGON (UNB/AP) - Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to northern Myanmar on Thursday to investigate government restrictions on her National League for Democracy party, a party statement said Wednesday. She will be accompanied by NLD vice chairman Tin Oo, the brief statement said. The announcement raised the prospect of another confrontation between Suu Kyi and Myanmar's military junta, which rules the country with an iron fist, giving little political freedom to opposition groups. "NLD vice chairman Tin Oo and general secretary Aung San Suu Kyi will travel to upper Myanmar on Sept. 21 to enquire about the restrictions imposed by authorities on NLD activities by closing down NLD branches and bringing down NLD signboards," the party statement said. Suu Kyi, emboldened by Western support, has often locked horns with the junta. The last standoff occurred after she, Tin Oo and some youth party members tried to travel to a southern town on Aug. 24, but were stopped on Yangon's outskirts and asked to go back. They refused and camped out in the open next to their vehicles for nine days before being forcibly sent back to Yangon on Sept. 1. The same night, Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and seven other top NLD leaders were confined to their homes and kept under virtual house arrest until Sept. 14. The NLD headquarters in Yangon were also reopened Sept. 15 after two weeks of being shut by the government. The NLD says the military government was pressured by international condemnation of its actions against a legitimate opposition party. There was no immediate reaction from the government on whether it will allow Suu Kyi to travel Thursday. Two years ago, the authorities blocked her on several occasions when she tried to travel to the provinces on party work. "Making trips knowing that she will be stopped is being confrontational and simply to create problems and to accuse the government of violating human rights and democracy," the Myanma Alin, a government newspaper, said Wednesday. "This is political deception," it said. Suu Kyi's latest move comes a week ahead of the 12th anniversary on Sept. 27 of the party's founding after a nationwide uprising for democracy was crushed by the military in 1988. Thousands of people were killed. Suu Kyi was put under house arrest in 1989 until 1995. Her party won national elections in 1990 but the government has refused to hand over power. She was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace prize for her pro-democracy work. The government calls her a lackey of Western powers, and justified the latest crackdown on NLD on the grounds that it was investigating its alleged links with terrorist groups. The Myanma Alin article Wednesday described Suu Kyi as the "adopted child of neocolonialists." "The general public understands that neocolonialists are interfering in the country's internal affairs under the pretext of democracy and human rights," it said. The NLD said last week that 11 party members including one who was elected in the 1990 elections were arrested by the government even as it eased restrictions on top party leaders. But Suu Kyi sounded a defiant note on her release from confinement on Sept. 14, and challenged authorities to stop her from traveling outside Yangon. "Stop us if you dare," she had said. At a meeting Saturday, the party also resolved to draft an alternative national constitution. |