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Norway sends diplomat to Myanmar ov



OSLO, Aug 5 (AFP) - Norway is concerned about the well-being of Nobel
laureate and pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and has sent a foreign
ministry official to Myanmar, Foreign Minister Knut Vollebaek told the
Norwegian daily Aftenposten Wednesday.

The official, Erling Rimestad, who is Norway's charge d'affaires in
Singapore and who is accredited to Rangoon, will try to contact Aung San Suu
Kyi, Vollebaek said.

"We have understood that Aung San Suu Kyi is ill, and we have not been able
to get in contact with her. We are very concerned and worried about her,"
Vollebaek said.

The pro-democracy leader, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1991, is reported
to be in poor health. She remained in her car in a tense six-day stand-off
with the authorities last week when she was prevented from visiting
provincial party officials.

It was the third time she had been stopped trying to leave the capital in
three weeks.

According to Vollebaek, Rimestad will also meet with officials from other
countries on the Myanmar issue, including the United States and the European
Union.

"We are going to try to put together a joint protest in Rangoon so that the
diplomats can go to the Myanmar foreign ministry as a group," Vollebaek said.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections
in 1990 by a landslide, but the ruling junta has refused to hand over power.

The NLD leader, who was kept under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, has
announced plans for a ceremony on August 8 to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of a bloody clampdown on a pro-democracy uprising in 1988.

On Tuesday, six Nobel prize winners urged Myanmar's military leaders to
restore democracy, and called on them to engage in "constructive dialogue"
with Aung San Suu Kyi.

The appeal was signed by Nobel peace prize winners Lech Walesa (Poland,
1983), Desmond Tutu (South Africa, 1984), Oscar Arias Sanchez (Costa Rica,
1987), Jose Ramos-Horta (East Timor, 1996) as well as Nobel literature
winners Nadine Gordimer (South Africa) and Derek Walcott (Saint Lucia).