Myanmar junta lashes out

at Suu Kyi

 

September 26, 2000

YANGON (AP)- Myanmar's ruling junta on Monday lashed out at Aung San Suu Kyi and her Western supporters, saying the opposition leader's "stop me if you dare" campaign is hurting the government's goal to establish a new kind of democracy. 

In a written statement, the government accused western diplomats in Yangon of encouraging "one individual .... to destabilize and overthrow the government of the host country." 

The statement came as the British Embassy said ambassador John Jenkins was prevented Monday from seeing the 1991 Nobel peace laureate who is under apparent house arrest again after her latest defiance of the junta last week. 

Jenkins was stopped outside Suu Kyi's house by security forces and told he would not be allowed to see her as "`a temporary measure,"' an embassy spokesperson said on customary condition of anonymity. 

The crackdown demonstrates the junta's resolve to silence Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy despite the vehement Western criticism it is facing and the brickbats it could receive in upcoming international meetings. 

The government, which had kept Suu Kyi under formal house arrest from 1989 to 1995, refused to hand over power to the NLD after it overwhelmingly won the elections in 1990. The military government dislikes her spreading the pro-democracy message, and has often used force to prevent her from traveling. 

The government statement said that instead of adopting confrontation, the NLD should support the authorities in its national goal to transform Myanmar "to a totally different political system," which includes the establishment of a "sustainable democracy." 

Suu Kyi's latest standoff with the government began Aug. 24 when she tried to drive out of Yangon for party work. On being stopped, she became locked in a nine-day roadside standoff that ended when she was forcibly brought back to Yangon and kept under virtual house arrest for two weeks. Eight other top party leaders were also confined to their homes. 

When the restrictions were lifted, Suu Kyi and deputy party leader Tin Oo tried to travel outside Yangon by train on Thursday. They were forcibly evicted from the station and the home confinement restrictions were imposed again on Suu Kyi, Tin Oo and the remaining seven top NLD leaders. 

Besides, Tin Oo, 73, was shifted to a government guest house, a euphemism for indefinite detention without charges. Some 45 other NLD members have been living in guest houses since September 1998. 

British diplomats who tried to visit Suu Kyi on Friday and Saturday were turned away but they will continue to try to see her, the British Embassy spokesperson said. 

In Canberra, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer condemned the junta and said Australian diplomats in Yangon were trying to meet Suu Kyi to check her welfare and that of her supporters. 

The international support Suu Kyi commands irks the junta greatly. 

Monday's government statement said western nations should act and care for the welfare of 48 million people of Myanmar and not "just one single individual's interests." 

"The so-called `war of endurance' and `stop me if you dare' campaigns orchestrated by NLD ... need to be looked into," it said. 

It is unfortunate that every government step "has been challenged, ridiculed and impeded," delaying Myanmar's "orderly transition to a multiparty democracy," it said. 

Meanwhile, issuing a veiled threat, a government newspaper warned the NLD that it owes its survival to the military authorities who, it claimed, are protecting the NLD from the wrath of the people. 

"NLD people are snakes ... (people) are ready to wipe them out," said an article in the 
Myanmar-language Kyemon daily Monday.