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BURMESE RULERS FACE EXPIRATION OF D



Subject: BURMESE RULERS FACE EXPIRATION OF DISSIDENT'S DETENTION

  BURMESE RULERS FACE EXPIRATION OF DISSIDENT'S DETENTION
  (th)
  By PHILIP SHENON
  c.1994 N.Y. Times News Service
  
     BANGKOK, Thailand  The Burmese generals who run Myanmar face a
  momentous decision in the next few weeks: whether to release the
  country's Nobel Prize-winning dissident leader when the detention
  order expires next month, more than five years after she was placed
  under house arrest, or to face a new round of international
  condemnation by continuing to hold her.
*    Foreign diplomats in Myanmar, formerly Burma, say there are
  signs to suggest that the dissident leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi,
  is negotiating a deal with the military that would result in
  freedom for her and for many imprisoned supporters.
     Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the Oxford-educated daughter of Myanmar's
  independence hero and the most popular political figure in the
  country, has met at least twice this fall with the junta's leaders.
     The meetings were an important concession by the military given
  its earlier description of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1991
  Nobel Peace Prize for her campaign to restore democracy to her
  homeland, as a dupe of Burmese Communists.
     Diplomats say there are also widespread reports from Burmese
  that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed to meet with two of her
  detained colleagues last month.
     If the reports are true  diplomats say it is impossible to
  confirm them  it would have been her first meeting with any of her
  Burmese supporters since she was put under house arrest in July
  1989 in the midst of a violent crackdown on the democracy movement.
     ``The signs are very promising,'' said a Western diplomat in
  Yangon, the capital, formerly Rangoon. ``It's Kremlinology to a
  large extent, but clearly the generals want to reach an agreement
  that will end this country's status as a pariah. And the only way
  to do that is to free Suu Kyi.''
     The junta put Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest on July
  20, 1989, describing her as a threat to public order. She was held
  under a law that allowed the government to confine a prisoner for
  as long as three years. The law was later revised to allow her to
  be held for two more years. Reinterpreting the law, the junta
  extended the detention last year by six months, a period that would
  end on Jan. 20, 1995.
     Diplomats say the junta could justify holding Mrs. Aung San Suu
  Kyi beyond next month only if it rewrote the law, a decision that
  would outrage foreign governments just as the junta is making
  substantial progress in attracting foreign investment and even some
  diplomatic support. Such a decision would also enrage millions of
  Burmese after the junta had raised the public's hopes that Mrs.
  Aung San Suu Kyi would be freed.
     In October, the United States sent its highest-level delegation
  to Myanmar since 1988, when thousands of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi's
  supporters were killed in a military crackdown on the democracy
  movement.
     The head of the delegation, Thomas C. Hubbard, deputy assistant
  secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs, said he had
  told the Burmese military that the United States was prepared to
  ``move forward aggressively'' in improving ties between the two
  countries if there were political reforms.
     As a protest over its human rights record, Washington has no
  ambassador in Myanmar and has vetoed aid through the World Bank and
  the International Monetary Fund.
     In her only interview in five years, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi said
  in February that she was prepared to negotiate with the junta and
  was open to discussing any issue  except that of her departure
  from Myanmar.
     She has said she will refuse to leave the country. The junta had
  offered to allow her to go free if she agreed to leave and not
  return for five years.