| ||
| ||
| ||
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
U.S. asks Thailand to help Suu Kyi
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. president and Thailand's leader have urged Myanmar's ruling junta to release Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi from detention. U.S. President George W. Bush asked Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to help him secure the pro-democracy leader's immediate release at a meeting in the White House Tuesday. Suu Kyi has been held since her supporters clashed with a pro-government group in a street battle on May 30. The government says she will remain in "protective custody" for her own safety. Both Thailand and Myanmar are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Members of that grouping have decided that Suu Kyi's detention is an internal matter. But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to attend the ASEAN regional forum next week in Cambodia, at which Suu Kyi's detention is expected to be on the agenda. On Tuesday U.N. envoy Razali Ismail met with the jailed opposition leader and reported her "well and in good spirits." "She did not have a scratch on here and was feisty as usual," Razali told reporters at the airport before leaving for Malaysia. He expressed hope she might be freed within the next couple of weeks.
Diplomats and members of Myanmar's opposition feared Suu Kyi may have been hurt in the clash before she was seized. Razali arrived in the country last Friday on a mission to have Suu Kyi released immediately from the custody of the government. While U.S. State Department spokesman Philip Reeker welcomed the news of her safety, he called her detention "shameful" and "unacceptable" and urged the junta to release all political prisoners. After visiting the site of the bloody attack, diplomats from the U.S. Embassy in Yangon said it looked like "a premeditated ambush" on her motorcade, conducted by "government-affiliated thugs." Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for Suu Kyi and her followers to be released immediately, saying Myanmar was at a "critical juncture" in its ongoing political transition. Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her pro-democracy activism but has spent much of the last 15 years under house arrest. Myanmar's ruling junta had her confined to her home from 1989 to 1995 and again from September 2000 until May 2002. Her National League for Democracy handily won a 1990 general election, but the country's military government refused to let it take power. -- CNN Bangkok Bureau Chief Tom Mintier contributed to this report.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
