Suu Kyi leaves house, dares junta

YANGON, SEPT. 15. Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's pro-democracy leader, left her residence today after two weeks of virtual house arrest and dared the military Government to stop her plans to travel outside the capital.

Accompanied by other leaders of her party, Ms Suu Kyi today entered her newly-reopened party headquarters in Yangon. ``I shall be travelling outside Rangoon (Yangon) within the next 10 days for party organisational work. It will be an organised trip, and we will do it openly. It is high time the SPDC (the ruling military council) stops putting restrictions on our rights,'' she said.

The Telegraph reports:

Western diplomats visited Ms Suu Kyi on Thursday and declared her ``uncowed and ready to carry on the fight''.

A spokesman for the British embassy said: ``She was well and in good spirits but thinner from her ordeal.''

Ms Suu Kyi told the envoys that she was wrestled to the ground by six policewomen as 200 security officers forcibly returned her and 14 party colleagues to the capital on Sept 1.

Some of her supporters were manhandled and handcuffed, she said. The group had been trapped in a paddy field in Dalla for nine days, prevented from attempting to visit a party office near Yangon.

In the harshest action for years against the Nobel Peace laureate and her party, Ms Suu Kyi was padlocked in her house for 12 days. The party's entire central executive was also kept in their homes incommunicado. The army raided the NLD's headquarters and removed large quantities of paperwork, claiming it was investigating alleged links with terrorism. The office was apparently open on Thursday, although armed men maintained a guard outside.

The NLD won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but has never been allowed to govern by the military.

The American charge d'affaires, Ms Priscilla Clapp, was the first foreign visitor. The British were followed by representatives from the United Nations Development Fund.

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Section  : International
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