13th Year Under House Arrest

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International
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Added: 24-Oct-08

CHAN:
Burma dissident and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi is about to mark her 13th year under house arrest. Not exactly an anniversary to celebrate. Here's the full report.

STORY:
The prisoner of conscience Ms. Suu Kyi, will mark her 13th year under house arrest on Friday.

Suu Kyi, who is general secretary of Burma's opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), is confined to her home in Rangoon and requires official permission, granted rarely, to receive visitors.

[Debbie Stothard, Alternative Asean Network On Burma]:
"Even under the repressive law of the military regime, it appears that the regime itself may have broken their own laws in insisting, in continuing to detain Aung San Suu Kyi. So, her lawyers have been trying to appeal."

Suu Kyi's party the NLD won the 1990 general election by a landslide but the ruling military junta refused to honor the results. The junta just extended her house arrest by another six months in May.

[Debbie Stothard, Alternative Asean Network On Burma]:
"Definitely, the military regime will not be interested in releasing her unless they are guaranteed power in perpetuity. And they are hoping that the election that they hold and control and manipulate in 2010 will give them that opportunity."

Suu Kyi was allowed to meet several times with U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari after the junta cracked down on monk-led protests in September 2007. But in August this year, she refused to meet with Gambari who attempted to meet her for a fourth time.

Suu Kyi's snub of Gambari fueled speculation she was fed up with not just the lack of meaningful dialogue between her party and the junta, but what might be described as the United Nations' soft approach to Burma and the handling of the Cyclone Nargis disaster.