SLORC withdraw troops outside Aung

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Subject: SLORC withdraw troops outside Aung San Suu Kyi's home


SLORC withdraws troops outside Suu Kyi's home
AFP, Kyodo
January 24, 1994

All the soldiers guarding the home of Burmese dissident and Nobel laureate 
Aung San Suu Kyi have been withdrawn, Western diplomats in Rangoon said 
yesterday.
  "They are gone from the outside of the house.  I don't know about the 
inside," one diplomat said when reached by telephone from Bangkok.
  A second Western diplomat, also contacted by telephone from Bangkok, 
confirmed that the guards were absent from outside the house.
  "I passed along [the street in front of] her residence last night and  the 
two guard boxes were not there any longer," he said, speaking on condition 
of anonymity.
  The second diplomat also said there could still be guards inside the 
residence, and speculated that they could have been pulled from outside the 
house to make the military  government look good to the increasing number of 
tourists visiting Rangoon.
  "It is too soon to draw any conclusions, but it is definitely the first 
time [the guards have been withdrawn] since she was put under house arrest" 
on July 20, 1989, he said.
  The first official, who also declined to be identified by name, refused to 
speculate as to why the soldiers guarding the complex on Rangoon's University 
Avenue had been withdrawn.  "But I don't think it is terribly significant," 
he said.
  On Saturday, sentry boxes were removed from around her residence, but 
armed guards still remained around the house.
  The ruling SLORC has not issued any statement on the removal of the 
structures.  Barricades blocking road access to and from her residence were 
put up at 9pm on Saturday in accordance with he military's daily blockade 
rule....  The SLORC has not removed a sign it had put up in front of the 
house warning passers-by not to approach the residence.
  In the face of an international outcry calling for her release and 
restoration of democracy, the junta has eased the conditions of her 
detention somewhat, allowing her British husband Michael Aris and their 
children to visit her once or twice a year.
  Burma's chief justice reportedly hinted on Friday that the detention period 
of Suu Kyi can be prolonged beyond the existing legal deadline of July 
this year.