Opposition official: Myanmar govern

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Opposition official: Myanmar government forces Suu Kyi to end standoff


AP, Rangoon, 2 September 2000, 1.08 Eastern Time. Nearly 200 riot police
raided a roadside convoy and forced Aung San Suu Kyi to return to the
capital, ending a nine-day standoff between the opposition leader and
Myanmar's military regime, atop official in Suu Kyi's party said Saturday.

The government confirmed the move, saying Suu Kyi and her party ''arrived
home safe and sound this (Saturday) morning.''

The 55-year-old Nobel Peace laureate was stopped by police Aug. 24 in
the Yangon suburb of Dala as she and party colleagues attempted to travel
to the countryside for political organization work.

The group camped out in two vehicles, refusing to return to the capital.
The standoff drew international condemnation of the country's iron-fisted
military rule.

''Around midnight, nearly 200 riot police raided the place where we were
staying and forcibly took Aung San Suu Kyi and all of us,'' said Tin Oo,
Suu Kyi's deputy in the National League for Democracy.

A visibly angry Tin Oo told reporters the group was brought back to
Yangon in separate police cars and said he thought that Suu Kyi was
taken back to her house.

He could provide few details as security personnel ordered reporters
away from his house in Yangon where he was speaking.

A government press release, titled ''Dala incident ends happily,'' said
Suu Kyi and her party were at 1:30 a.m. Saturday ''escorted back to
their residences in Yangon in a motorcade facilitated by the
government for their safe and convenient return.''

The action, the release said, was taken because of monsoon season
rains,  Suu Kyi's personal safety and complaints by her party about
living conditions at her stalled convoy.

The strongest rebel group fighting the central government, the Karen
National Union, rejected Yangon's claims that Suu Kyi was being
protected at Dala from separatist ethnic groups like the KNU.

A statement from the guerrillas called on all people in Myanmar,
including military officers, to take to the streets to demonstrate
support for Suu Kyi.

It was the fifth time in less than three years that Suu Kyi was prevented
from travelling outside the capital, and the second time she was forcibly
returned to her home.

In July, 1998, Suu Kyi accused the government of kidnapping her to end
a six-day standoff, saying the police had held her down, taken the wheel
of her car and driven her back to Yangon.

On the eve of the latest government move against her, Foreign Minister
Win Aung said Suu Kyi was trying to attract international attention by
provoking authorities into arresting her.

He said the roadside standoff was aimed at forcing the military regime
into ''severe action.''

The incident began when Suu Kyi's group, including two senior members
of the party and 12 members of its youth wing, was blocked from traveling
beyond Dala and ordered to return to Yangon.

The NLD said Suu Kyi would not return to Yangon until she ''reaches her
destination and accomplishes party organizational duties.''

Suu Kyi has called for foreign sanctions against Myanmar's government and
a tourist boycott as a way of putting pressure on the military regime to 
improve
human rights conditions and restore democracy.

Myanmar is also known as Burma.

The activist is the daughter of the country's late independence leader,
Gen. Aung San. She has led Myanmar's opposition movement since
1988, when the military smashed mass pro-democracy demonstrations
and asserted its authoritarian rule.

She won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent political activities,
but was held under house arrest from 1989 to 1995.

The military held a general election in 1990, but refused to allow parliament
to convene after the NLD won a landslide victory. Since then, her party
members have suffered arrest and harassment from the government.

The current standoff was triggered when Suu Kyi made her first attempt
to travel outside the capital since two years ago, when the government
blocked four such attempts.

On the last occasion, in August 1998, she stayed in her vehicle for 13
days before returning home for health reasons.

''What she would like to see is the government to arrest her, thinking
that her arrest could create anarchy in the country, and eventually
expecting foreign intervention,'' Win Aung said.

Suu Kyi has made no known such call for intervention of that sort
in Myanmar, and Win Aung did not further explain his remark.

But Suu Kyi has urged foreign pressure on the military regime and
has repeatedly been rebuffed in attempts to hold a dialogue with
Myanmar's rulers.