Crackdown snags activist

Myanmar military reveals little about Suu Kyi's status

By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune
Published June 2, 2003

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the central committee of her National League for Democracy were being held incommunicado by the military government Monday as universities across the country were ordered shut in what analysts said was a new crackdown on the democracy movement in the former Burma.

For a full day there was no word about where the military was holding Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who was detained after a violent confrontation Friday night in the northern town of Ye-U. The military has not confirmed reports that she is back in Yangon, formerly Rangoon, and has not indicated what it intends to do with her. It has only said she was in "protective custody."

Sources told The Associated Press that Suu Kyi was in custody in the capital.

The military took 20 National League members into custody and placed the group's central committee members under house arrest in Yangon. The crackdown occurred after clashes in the north between pro-government demonstrators and Suu Kyi supporters left at least four people dead and 50 injured.

The military also closed the party's headquarters in the capital, along with at least six other offices across the nation, reports from Myanmar said.

Held incommunicado

No detained members of the league, including Suu Kyi, have been allowed outside contact. Telephone lines to the homes of league members in Yangon were cut.

The military said Suu Kyi is unharmed.

"We have been denied the opportunity to talk to any of the members of the NLD central committee and have been given no word from the government on when that could happen," said a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon.

The closing of all universities and colleges, traditionally hotbeds of political unrest in Myanmar, was announced late Sunday, and many students had not heard the news. Education and security officials turned students away at campuses.

The crackdown has been fomenting for months, analysts said.

Even after 12 years of absence from the public eye, Suu Kyi was greeted by thousands of well-wishers in her initial travels outside Yangon last year.

"Clearly, she was still just too popular for the generals' taste," a longtime political analyst in Yangon said Monday.

The analyst said it remains to be seen whether the military's actions will ultimately lead to the end of the democracy movement in Myanmar.

"This is probably another crackdown like we've seen before," he said, likening the military's actions to similar ones in 1988, 1996 and 1998.

According to the military, Suu Kyi and the 19 party members accompanying her on a political trip to the northern part of the country spent Friday night in Ye-U after their detention.

In statements since the clashes, the military junta, which has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988, blamed Suu Kyi and her followers for the violence, saying they made inflammatory speeches.

The NLD members were "under temporary protective custody," Brig. Than Tun said. It was still unclear who was killed in the violence.

Suspicions about arrest

Pro-democracy activists say the military has been inciting violence against Suu Kyi for months and is using the clashes to justify arresting her again.

"This is an unprecedented level of violence targeted at her directly," said Debbie Stafford, the Burma coordinator for Altsean, a regional pro-democracy group. "It's very clear that the military would have orchestrated an incident like this to teach Suu Kyi a lesson, so that she would not get too big and too popular, so that she would not go out of Rangoon."

Suu Kyi has twice been placed under house arrest, where she spent much of the last 12 years.

Her party overwhelmingly won national elections in 1990 only to see the results nullified by the military and the future Nobel Peace Prize winner denied freedoms. Suu Kyi was released in May 2002 with the promise she was free to travel throughout Myanmar to promote a national reconciliation dialogue agreed to by the military and her supporters.

On Sunday, U.S. Charge d'Affaires Carmen Martinez accompanied her British, German and Italian counterparts to the home of longtime democracy league spokesman U Luwin. The home was under armed guard, the U.S. Embassy spokesman said.

The diplomats were met at the residence by representatives of the Military Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Ministry who insisted Luwin and other league members were not under house arrest or protective custody, the embassy spokesman said.

However, the diplomats were refused entrance and any communication with Luwin.

©2003 The Chicago Tribune