Australia awarded Aung San Suu Kyi

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Subject: Australia awarded Aung San Suu Kyi a highest honor.


	

		 	Suu Kyi honored by Australian Government
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	The Federal Government yesterday awarded Australia's highest 
	honor to Burma's pro-democracy leader in a provocative gesture towards 
	the military regime in Rangoon.

	Aung San Suu Kyi heads the list of non-Australian citizen given 
	honorary awards.

	Already a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Suu Kyi will become an 
	honorary Companion of the Order of Australia (AC).

	Among those honored yesterday is the Rev. Beryl Baker, of View 
	Bank, Victoria, who served young people and the elderly for 31 years.

	
	(Herald Sun, 24 May 1996)

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			Suu Kyi awarded Order of Australia
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	Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ms Aung 
	San Suu Kyi was yesterday appointed a Companion of the Order of 
	Australia as the Federal Government intensified criticism of an 
	anti-democracy crackdown by Burma's military junta.

	In a symbolic of support for the pro-democracy forces in Burma, 
	the award to Ms Suu Kyi cited her "leadership and great personal 
	courage in the struggle to bring democracy to Burma" at the head of 
	the National League for Democracy.

	It comes amid widespread detentions by the military junta of 
	pro-democracy supporters aimed at disrupting a party conference palnned 
	in Rangoon on Sunday. Ms Suu Kyi says 191 mebers of the NLD have been 
	palced under house arrests or in prison.

	The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Downer, accused the military 
	junta, the State Law and Order Resotration Council, yesterday of taking 
	"arbitrary and intimidatory" action to stop the conference.

	The conference was expected to bring together more than 400 NLD 
	representatives, marking the sixth anniversary since the party won a 
	landslide victory in 1990 elections for membership of a national 
	constitutional convention.

	Ms Suu Kyi has promised to go ahead with the three-day 
	conference. Supporters, however, fear the junta will increase the 
	number of arrests in an effort to stop the meeting.

	[DON GREENLESS, RON CORBEN]

	(The Australian, 24 May 1996, front page).

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