Myanmar Opposition Leader Freed from House Arrest

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, May 06, 2002

Myanmar Opposition Leader Freed from House Arrest

Myanmar's opposition leader Aung SanSuu Kyi was freed Monday after 19 months of house arrest,government officials confirmed.

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Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was formally released Monday by the government after she was placed under house arrest for 18 months, official sources said.

However, Aung San Suu Kyi has not yet appeared in the public.The release of Aung San Suu Kyi, general secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD), came after Razali Ismail,special envoy of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, ended his seventh historic mission to Myanmar on April 26.

Aung San Suu Kyi had been confined to her Yangon residence forthe second time since September 2000 until her release after she defied the government's travel restriction by forcing her way to Mandalay, Myanmar's second largest city. The first time when she was put under house arrest lasted for six years from July 1989 to July 1995 for allegedly endangering the state out of her political activities.

The release of Aung San Suu Kyi was one of the highest demands of the international community and the government's move is widely seen as an important step taken to imply that it is going to makea political change.

Meanwhile, a government spokesman said here Monday that thegovernment will continue to release more detainees after it freednearly 600 in recent months, adding that Monday will mark a newpage for the Myanmar people and the international community andthe government will recommit itself to allowing all Myanmar citizens to take part freely in the life of the country's political process.

The government and the NLD began confidence-building talks since October 2000, one month after Suu Kyi was put under house arrest, and the dialogue between them was believed to have been initiated by Razali.

The NLD, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, won a landslide victory with 396 parliamentary seats out of 485 in the 1990 general election sponsored by the government after it took over the power of state on September 18, 1988 at the height of the country's then political crisis. The election was held with the aim of transferring power to the winning party to form a new government.The NLD complained that although the election ended nearly 12 years ago, the government has still not handed over the state power to the winning party.

Meanwhile, the Myanmar military government has been under economic sanctions from Western countries, led by the United States, on account of its human rights records.A spokesman of the U.S. State Department has expressed awelcome to Aung San Suu Kyi's release but stressed the importance that "the release be unconditional and that Aung San Suu Kyi be afforded full freedom of movement and association," declining to comment on the probability of lifting U.S. sanctions against Myanmar on the release.

The sanctions include an arms embargo, investment ban,suspension of all bilateral aid, visa restrictions on top leaders and a freeze on new lending and grant programs by international agencies.

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