Date:28/09/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/28/stories/2007092863491600.htm

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Singapore: Myanmar situation “very grave”

P. S. Suryanarayana

— Photo: AP

Call for democracy: A protester holds a placard outside the embassy of Myanmar in London on Thursday in protest against the ruling military regime in Myanmar.

SINGAPORE: In a politically significant intervention, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who chairs the Association of South East Asian Nations that includes Myanmar, described the unfolding situation there as “very grave” indeed. Mr. Lee began consulting other ASEAN leaders, as the forum “could not credibly remain silent or uninvolved in this matter.”

Singapore called upon the military junta to “grant” the U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari “full access to all players” relevant to a peaceful resolution of the current “situation.”

A spokesman of Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, Win Hlaing, told The Hindu over telephone from the Thailand-Myanmar border that the junta, styled the Peace and Development Council (SPDC), was believed to have moved Ms. Suu Kyi to Insein prison from her Yangon residence where she was being held in detention for years.

But there was no independent confirmation of any such development. Ms. Suu Kyi had silently greeted hundreds of marching monks as they filed past her residence last Saturday when the police, in a rare gesture, allowed them access to her doorstep.

National Council of the Union of Burma spokesman Soe Aung told The Hindu over telephone from Bangkok that the crackdown could lead to another “bloodbath” as in 1988. He said the leaders of the latest movement were looking towards democratic powers like India to prevent any such denouement yet again.