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Myanmar's Suu Kyi will not accept freedom for herself

Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is no longer under security detention, but will not accept freedom until all those arrested with her five months ago are released, a UN human-rights envoy said yesterday.

"She wants to be the last person to have access to freedom of movement," the envoy, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, told reporters.

Pinheiro met with Suu Kyi at her lakeside home Thursday during his weeklong mission to investigate human rights in the military-ruled country.

The Nobel Peace laureate has been under detention since a bloody clash in northern Myanmar on May 30 between her supporters and a pro-junta mob. She was first held at an undisclosed location and then at her Yangon residence.

Pinheiro said 35 people remain in jail in connection with the May 30 incident and 101 have been freed. In addition there are eight central executive members of the NLD in house arrest, he said.

The UN envoy said Suu Kyi told him that "she will not accept any privilege or freedom of movement before all the people detained since May 30 including her eight colleagues [are] released."

The government said at the time of the clash that Suu Kyi was being detained under emergency security law. But Pinheiro said he was told by authorities this week that she is "not held under any security law." The government has not said this publicly.

It was not clear if that meant Suu Kyi was free to leave her home or whether she was being held under some non-security law. Pinheiro refused to clarify.

He also declined to give an account of Suu Kyi's health but said she was in good spirits.

"She wants an independent investigation of the [May 30] incident. She wants accountability and justice but not revenge," Pinheiro said.

"Sometimes tragic incidents could become the foundation for change," he said.

Pinheiro is the only person to have been allowed to meet with Suu Kyi other than UN special envoy to Myanmar, Razali Ismail, and Red Cross officials.

Her detention has provoked widespread international criticism of the junta, which has refused to give up power it seized in 1988 despite calling elections in 1990 and losing them to Suu Kyi's party.

Razali initiated reconciliation talks between Suu Kyi and the junta in October 2000 but the process ground to a halt after the May 30 incident in which dozens of opposition members are said to have been killed, according to dissident accounts. The government says only four people died.
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