Myanmar extends Suu Kyi detention

POSTED: 10:22 a.m. EDT, May 25, 2007

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Defying an outpouring of international appeals, Myanmar's military government Friday extended the house arrest of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi by another year, a government official said.

The official confirmed that a car seen entering her home Friday afternoon carried officials presenting her with a new detention order, which will keep her confined to her residence for a fifth straight year.

The official asked that neither he nor his agency, which is concerned with security affairs, be named, because he is not authorized to speak to the press. The government normally makes no official public announcement of such actions.

Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has spent 11 of the past 17 years in detention, and is not even allowed any telephone contact either with the outside. Her current one-year detention order was due to expire on Sunday.

The extension had been widely expected, although many international groups and dignitaries had called for Suu Kyi's freedom.

Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.'s independent expert on human rights in Myanmar, called it a "very regrettable decision."

"I think this is very counterproductive in terms of making a transition to democracy," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Cape Town, South Africa. "They say they are moving ahead. But they continue to hold 1,200 political prisoners, including the main members of the opposition."

Nyan Win, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said the organization had not yet been able to confirm the government action.

"However, if the detention is extended despite demands by the international community, this is a very uncivilized action," he said.

The first sign of the extension came when a silver-gray Toyota Hi-Ace car with tinted windows was seen by neighborhood residents entering Suu Kyi's compound at 3:55 p.m.

The identity of the people in the vehicle was unknown, though they were almost certain to have been officials because she is allowed no visitors. They stayed for about 10 minutes. The detention order takes effect when it is read out to the person concerned.

Suu Kyi has been held continuously since May 30, 2003, when her motorcade was attacked by a pro-junta mob during a political tour of northern Myanmar. The government considers her a threat to public order.

The ruling junta turned a deaf ear to the appeals for her freedom from abroad, and harassed and detained her local supporters, who have been holding prayer vigils for her release.

On Wednesday, the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, broke with its policy of noninterference to urge the country's generals to free Suu Kyi and speed up democratic reforms.

They joined former world leaders, a group of female U.S. Senators and pro-democracy activists around the world who have recently pressed for an end to her detention.

In a letter last week to Senior Gen. Than Shwe, the junta's chief, 59 former world leaders -- including former U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and former British Prime Ministers John Major and Margaret Thatcher -- urged Suu Kyi's release.

"There's no doubt that Aung San Suu Kyi is not going to be released from house arrest," Larry Jagan, a journalist based in Bangkok, Thailand who specializes in Myanmar, said earlier this week.

Jagan and others predict Suu Kyi's status won't change until at least the National Convention finishes drafting a new constitution and probably not until a referendum on the constitution and elections are held -- a period of three or four more years.

The convention is the first step on the ruling junta's seven-stage "road map to democracy," which is supposed to culminate in free elections at an unspecified future date.

The junta took power in 1988 after crushing vast pro-democracy demonstrations in Myanmar, then known as Burma. It refused to hand over power when, on May 27, 1990, Suu Kyi's party won a general election by a landslide, insisting the country first needed a new constitution. The military has continued to rule while persecuting members of the pro-democracy movement.

The United Nations, the European Union and the U.S. government regularly call for the release of Suu Kyi -- along with more than 1,200 other political prisoners.

The U.N.'s Pinheiro said it was disappointing that Myanmar extended the house arrest despite appeals from all over the world. He also criticized the junta for "refusing humanitarian appeals" concerning prisoners serving sentences as long as 70 years.

"It's completely unacceptable," he said.