U.N. welcomes Myanmar reform moves

Aung San Suu Kyi is engaged in private talks with the military aimed at reforms

YANGON, Myanmar -- The United Nations has welcomed the release of five more opposition lawmakers in Myanmar as momentum in the military-ruled country builds towards potential democratic reform.

The military government says the release reflects progress in talks with opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan hopes for "democratization and national reconciliation in the country."

The ruling generals detained the five for more than a decade after seizing power and crushing a pro-democracy movement in a bloody crackdown.

Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a 1990 election by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern.

A Nobel-prize winner, she remains confined but has been engaged in extended private talks with the military since October.

In New York a spokesman said Annan "calls on both sides to build on this momentum to achieve further progress in their dialogue process."

Thursday's release comes amid other signs of reform. Eight political prisoners were freed last week and 20 opposition party branch offices were allowed to reopen.

A government spokesman said the freed five were all members of the NLD who had been elected at the last democratic polls in 1990.

Form of detention

The government spokesman told Reuters: "Five more NLD politicians were this morning permitted to return home to join their families from the government guesthouses."

"Government guesthouses" is a euphemism for a loose form of detention, from which detainees are sometimes allowed to return home for short spells.

Myanmar's ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) has never recognized the result of the 1990 election and has detained dozens of opposition politicians since the vote.

Many were arrested in 1998 after the NLD announced it would try to convene its Committee Representing People's Parliament of politicians elected in 1990.

Asked whether Thursday's release meant progress was being made in the talks, the spokesman replied: "Yes, of course."

Three still head

The spokesman identified the five released politicians, all men, as 57-year-old Nyan Win, Pike Chown, 54, Win Naing, 45, Aung Soe, 52, and Thein Lwin, 50.

"Three of them were in Yangon and the remaining two in other regions outside Yangon," he said.

The authorities are still keeping the NLD's top three leaders -- Suu Kyi, Aung Shwe and Tin Oo -- under house arrest.

The spokesman said at least a dozen other elected NLD officials remain at government guesthouses across the country, formerly known as Burma.