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NEWS - Myanmar's Suu Kyi Says She W
Myanmar's Suu Kyi Says She Was Kidnapped by Government
AP
30-JUL-98
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi
today
accused the government of kidnapping her to end a six-day
standoff,
saying police held her down, took the wheel of her car and
forcibly
drove her back to the capital.
The government admitted returning the democracy campaigner
to the
capital against her will Wednesday evening, but has not
explained its
tactics.
``The government had no choice but to take the initiative to
break the
standoff by sending her to Yangon,'' government spokesman
Col. Hla
Min said at a news conference today.
With a feverish Suu Kyi lying in the back seat of her car,
where she
had slept for five straight nights, two policewomen held her
down and
other officers ejected two colleagues from the front seat,
members of
her party said at a separate news conference today.
Another officer took the wheel and drove the car from the
bridge on a
rural road 20 miles west of the capital, to Yangon, they
said.
``I was kidnapped. They even stole my car,'' U Lwin, a
member of Suu
Kyi's National League for Democracy, today quoted her as
saying
after she returned home about 10:20 p.m. Wednesday.
Party leaders said today Suu Kyi had been determined to
continue the
standoff until the military government agreed to open a
dialogue with
her and her party, something the generals have refused to
do.
Authorities had stopped her Friday morning as she attempted
to drive
to Bassein to meet members of her party who won
parliamentary
elections in 1990 but were never allowed to take office
because the
government annulled the vote. Other NLD member have been
jailed.
It was the third time this month the government has blocked
Suu Kyi's
efforts to leave the capital for party meetings. The
military has allowed
her to leave Yangon only once since her release from six
years of
house arrest in July 1995. She visited a Buddhist monk that
year in the
eastern city of Pa-an.
After examining Suu Kyi today, her doctors said she had a
large
bruise on her wrist, which they said was the result of rough
police
treatment, but described her as being in good spirits.
Asked today to describe the manner in which police ended the
stalemate, Hla Min told reporters to ask the opposition.
Suu Kyi did not attend her party's news conference because
``she is
not well enough. She is still very, very weak,'' said Tin
Oo, NLD vice
chairman, adding that there had been no contact or
negotiations
between the military and the party.
Speaking in Sydney, Australia, today, U.S. Secretary of
State
Madeleine Albright called the government's actions ``an
unacceptable
violation of human rights'' that would ``only contribute to
the further
isolation of Burma.''
Hla Min accused Suu Kyi of provoking the clash outside the
capital so
that ``Mrs. Albright could berate Myanmar and induce other
governments to put pressure on Myanmar.''
Suu Kyi's ``objective has been achieved, and so it was time
to break
the standoff,'' he said, adding the government had acted on
the advice
of Suu Kyi's doctors.
Party leaders vehemently denied that claim.
Prior to her return, the military told diplomats that the
democracy
leader's trip outside Yangon had been stopped to avert
possible
disturbances, diplomatic sources said.
Suu Kyi's party follows a policy of nonviolence, and no
riots or other
unrest has been associated with her trips or public
speeches.
Since Suu Kyi emerged from house arrest, the government has
installed police checkpoints near her home, refused
journalists entry
and restricted access by diplomats and party members.
Democracy activists say harassment of her followers has
increased in
recent months.
The government refused a request in the middle of the
standoff this
week by seven Western nations that U.S. and Japanese
diplomats in
Myanmar be allowed to see Suu Kyi.