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U.N.: Suu Kyi refuses freedom

Suu Kyi
Suu Kyi returned home after three months in military detention.

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YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) -- Myanmar's generals have freed democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, but she is refusing to accept liberty until 35 colleagues are released from detention, U.N. envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro said on Saturday.

"She will not accept to have any privilege or any access to freedom of movement until everyone detained since May 30 has been released," Pinheiro told a news conference.

The U.N. human rights envoy said he had been told by the ruling generals during talks in Yangon this week that Suu Kyi, detained after a bloody clash between her followers and government supporters, was no longer under house arrest.

Pinheiro, who spent two hours with Suu Kyi on Thursday, said she demanded the release of 35 colleagues in the National League for Democracy before she would consider herself free.

She also demanded an inquiry into the May 30 violence, which each side blames on the other, and for those responsible to be held accountable, he said.

"She wants justice, not revenge," the Brazilian academic added. He quoted her as saying: "Let's move forward. Let's work so it doesn't happen again.

However, Pinheiro said, the generals who have ruled Myanmar since 1962 "have not yet agreed" to his offer to conduct "an independent assessment" of the May violence and gave no indication on when Suu Kyi might move around again.

Nor, he said, did he win agreement from the ruling generals for an independent investigation of alleged human rights abuses such as forced labor in Shan state, one of several minority regions that have long fought the Yangon government.

Suu Kyi has made similar pronouncements before during the long periods she has spent confined to her lakeside house in Yangon, including the last time when she emerged just weeks before the May violence.

Diplomatic sources said Suu Kyi emerged then because she was confident U.N. efforts to get so-called national reconciliation talks restarted were going to be successful.

Instead, she was detained at a secret location after the clash -- for her own safety, according to the government -- from which she was allowed to go to hospital for surgery, then to house arrest in September.

Pinheiro made his own calls on the government to clear the way for talks with the NLD on moving towards democracy by freeing all political prisoners and re-opening political party offices.

He said the government should give "credible indications" on how and when the reforms it has long promised would be implemented.

Pinheiro was only the second foreigner, after U.N. special envoy Razali Ismail met her in early October, known to have seen Suu Kyi since she went home from hospital.

He gave no indications of whether Suu Kyi's formal release from house arrest was a significant move towards resuming talks on a new constitution broken off in 1996 following an NLD walkout.

New Prime Minister Khin Nyunt set out a "road map to democracy" shortly after taking office in August, with resumption of the talks the first step.

There has been no word on when that might be.

The NLD was widely believed to have won 1990 elections in a landslide, but was never allowed to take office.



Copyright 2003 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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