Cambridge University honours Kohl, (r)

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Cambridge University honours Kohl, Suu Kyi 
10:53 a.m. Jun 24, 1998 Eastern 
CAMBRIDGE, England, June 24 (Reuters) - Cambridge University on Wednesday
gave its highest honour to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and Burmese
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. 
A small number of students and academics staged a boycott and handed out
leaflets as Kohl received his honorary degree. 
One group of three students refused to walk in one of the day's ceremonial
processions. They were demanding that Kohl, in his capacity as the next
president of the Group of Eight major nations, take steps to ease Third
World debt for the millennium. 
A separate group of academics handed out leaflets in protest at a rise in
neo-Nazism since the reunification of Germany. 
While Kohl was present at the colourful honorary degree ceremony in the
historic British university town but Suu Kyi was not, fearing that
Myanmar's military rulers might refuse to let her return if she left the
country. 
In a speech delivered by the University Orator, Anthony Bowen, tribute was
paid to Suu Kyi for her courage, non-violence and self-sacrifice. 
``Seated in the chair that we see empty we were to have seen a lady who was
elected leader of her country by four-fifths of the people; yet the office
she should be holding is null: a military tyranny continues to keep her
out,'' he said. 
``They call her whore and snake and sorceress, and revile her for wedding a
foreigner: would she be free to return?'' 
The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner celebrated her 53rd birthday on Friday,
with her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party defiantly
declaring it Myanmar Women's Day in the face of strong opposition from the
country's military junta. 
Suu Kyi's NLD swept the 1990 general election but its victory was ignored
by the military, who later put her under house arrest for six years. 
Suu Kyi was freed in 1995 and is allowed to leave her house, but her
political activities and those of the NLD have been curbed by the junta. 
In his speech in praise of Kohl, orator Bowen paid tribute to the German
leader's experience in public affairs not only in his home country but also
in Europe. 
``He was once at a blind tasting and they produced an English wine: he knew
where it came from. We note the learned palate of this man from the
Palatinate.'' 
Kohl's achievement in reuniting Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall
in 1989 was praised. 
``When the Berlin wall, that divider of a nation, fell while he was
chancellor, easterners panicked and fled west, desperate about their
currency. 
``The chancellor spoke: savings put in eastern marks would be duly honoured
in western marks. Calm and confidence returned.'' 
The citation also paid tribute to Kohl's role in introducing the single
European currency system, the first since the Roman empire. 
``On both policies there is no wavering in him at all: his purpose holds.
To quote Virgil, this is a man of especial worth.'' 
In receiving honorary degrees from Cambridge, Kohl and Suu Kyi join such
figures as Mother Teresa, former German President Richard von Weizsaecker,
former Irish President Mary Robinson and British actor Alec Guinness.