AFP-UN secretary general sends lett

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UN secretary general sends letter to Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi
Wed 12 Aug 98 - 11:47 GMT 

BANGKOK, Aug 12 (AFP) - UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has sent a letter
to embattled Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and hopes to
dispatch top envoy Alvaro de Soto to the military-run state, the UN
representative in Yangon said Wednesday.
"The only thing that I can tell you is that the letter was delivered last
week, on Tuesday," acting United Nations coordinator in Myanmar Juan
Aguilar said, while declining to comment on its content.
"We don't have a copy of it, we only had the instructions to deliver it,"
he told AFP by telephone. Sources in Yangon said Aguilar or another UN
official had been prevented from delivering the letter to Aung San Suu Kyi
personally and that it had been passed to her via an intermediary.
Aguilar said Annan also wanted to send UN envoy Alvaro de Soto to Yangon to
meet junta leaders and Aung San Suu Kyi.
"Kofi Annan has proposed the visit of Mr Alvaro de Soto and I don't know if
he has already presented this possibility to the government," he added.
"It is up to the government of Myanmar really to accept or not, or decide
when they want to have a UN envoy."
Political tensions have been on the rise in the isolated state in recent
weeks and the international community has issued repeated calls to the
junta to begin dialogue with opposition parties.
Tensions soared Wednesday as Aung San Suu Kyi tried to leave the capital to
visit provincial supporters, and 18 foreign activists spent a fourth day in
detention for allegedly seeking to incite unrest.
The United States Wednesday demanded the junta immediately release the six
Americans amongst the detainees.
A defiant Aung San Suu Kyi left Yangon earlier in the day to visit
supporters but was blocked by the military for the fourth time since early
June.
Diplomats said the incident appeared to be a repeat of events in July when
the Nobel peace laureate was blocked after attempting to visit party
members outside the capital.
On her last attempt, the NLD leader spent six days in a roadside standoff
with authorities before she was forcibly returned to Yangon.
Opposition parties spearheaded by Aung San Suu Kyi's National league for
Democracy (NLD) won 1990 polls in Myanmar by a landslide but the military
has refused to relinquish power.
The NLD has demanded the junta allow parliament to convene by August 21 or
face unspecified consequences.