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AFP : Friends rally around grieving



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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Thida (Thin Myat Thu)                 http://www.communique.no/dvb/
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