Suu Kyi was ambushed in Myanmar, reports say

By Rafael D. Frankel
Special to the Tribune

BANGKOK — Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her convoy were ambushed by the military Friday night, according to reports from Myanmar that contradict the military government’s account of the clash.

Meanwhile, the fates of 17 of her National League for Democracy colleagues were unknown Tuesday after the military reversed course and told diplomats it could not guarantee they were unharmed, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon.

Suu Kyi, 57, the leader of the NLD, suffered a serious head injury and a broken hand in Friday night’s violence, in which dozens of people were killed, according to reports by Radio Free Asia. Corroborating reports came from the Washington-based
National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a pro-democracy group that
says it heard eyewitness accounts of the violence.

The military did not reveal Suu Kyi’s whereabouts Tuesday. The junta also continued to hold incommunicado the central committee of her party under house arrest.

In briefing diplomats Tuesday, the military junta that has ruled Myanmar since crushing a popular uprising in 1988 still said that only four people were killed in a fight incited by Suu Kyi’s group, according to the U.S. Embassy. The junta assured
diplomats that Suu Kyi and her vice chairman, U Tin Oo, were in good health, an Embassy spokesman said.

However, in a departure from previous statements, the military said they could no longer make such guarantees about the other NLD members who had been accompanying Suu Kyi when the violence occurred, leading to fears among democracy supporters that they were killed or seriously injured.

During Tuesday’s diplomatic briefing, several Western ambassadors pointed out “inconstancies” in the military’s story, and the reaction among the diplomats
was one of “incredulity,” the U.S. spokesman said. The diplomats were particularly
skeptical of the military’s insistence that no police or military officers were present at a 5,000-person protest against Suu Kyi that the military claims to
have taken place and that Suu Kyi was taken into “protective custody” two hours later, thespokesman said.

Since her release from house arrest a year ago, Suu Kyi has been under constant surveillance by military intelligence. Witnesses’ accounts of the violence indicate that soldiers, pro-government militia members and convicts from a local prison attacked the 19 NLD members and hundreds of their supporters Friday.

The soldiers opened fire on Suu Kyi’s car, puncturing its tires, and the militia and convicts beat the Nobel Peace laureate and members of her group with bamboo stakes, the accounts aid. Vice Chairman Tin Oo was beaten and dragged away by three police officers, the witnesses said.

In the northern city of Mandalay, the witnesses managed to contact local members of the NLD, who helped the escapees call the National Coalition Government in Thailand, according to Zin Linn, the group’s eastern regional director, based in Bangkok.

Confirming the reports has proved difficult because phone lines to much of northern Myanmar are down.

On Monday, the military closed all offices of the party across Myanmar and closed all universities, which were supposed to start a new term that
day. On Tuesday, the military insisted the closings of the NLD offices were only temporary, though they offered no schedule for reopening them, an Embassy spokesman said.

World leaders have condemned the crackdown and demanded the release of Suu Kyi and her league members.

"The military authorities should release Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters immediately and permit her party headquarters to reopen," President Bush said Monday.

©2003 The Chicago Tribune