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AFP : Friends rally around grieving
- Subject: AFP : Friends rally around grieving
- From: euburma@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 03:06:00
Subject: AFP : Friends rally around grieving DASSK
Friends rally around grieving Myanmar democracy leader
YANGON, March 29 (AFP) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was
surrounded by friends at her home here Monday as she mourned the death of her
husband and tried to contact her sons in Britain, sources said.
The Nobel peace prize winner was "wan" but taking solace from hundreds of
friends and supporters who have paid their respects at her home since Michael
Aris died in Britain of cancer on Saturday, friends told AFP.
"I found her wan but mentally strong. She appears to be holding out well
under the circumstances with close friends and relatives in attandance," one
of her close friends said after paying his respects.
He said the National League for Democracy (NLD) leader was being attended
constantly by a personal doctor.
Aung San Suu Kyi refused to go to her dying husband's bedside for fear
that
the junta in Yangon would not allow her back into the country to continue her
11-year battle for democracy and human rights.
The junta effectively denied Aris a visa to visit his wife in Yangon one
last time before he died, saying he was unfit to travel and would be a burden
on Myanmar's limited medical facilities.
His death has proved another disaster for the junta's already tattered
image, with the United States, the United Nations, Britain and others
condemning its reluctance to allow a farewell meeting in Yangon.
US President Bill Clinton took time from the Kosovo crisis on the weekend
to say he was "saddened" by Aris' death and vowed to keep up US opposition to
the military authorities in Myanmar.
"I want to reaffirm to Michael's family and to all the people of Burma
that
the United States will keep working for the day when all who have been
separated and sent into exile by the denial of human rights in Burma are
reunited with their families, and when Burma is reunited with the family of
freedom," Clinton said in a statement Saturday.
He praised Aris's "perseverance and dedication to his wife and family and
to the cause of human rights and democracy."
A UN statement said Secretary General Kofi Annan was "dismayed that,
despite efforts with the authorities in Myanmar, the couple were not able to
meet during Dr. Aris's illness."
Sources said Aung San Suu Kyi was having trouble speaking to her two sons
in Britain to arrange her husband's funeral because the junta had refused to
provide her home with an international telephone line, despite repeated
requests.
She has instead been forced to go to the British embassy to contact her
family.
The junta places strict controls on her freedom of movement and expression
and rarely allows her contact with the outside world.
Aung San Suu Kyi led the NLD to an easy victory in 1990 elections but the
junta has ignored the result and tried to crush the party and its grassroots
support.
A Buddhist funeral ceremony is being planned at her home later this week,
sources said.
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