Myanmar junta extends opponent Suu Kyi's detention

YANGON - Myanmar's military junta has extended the house arrest of opposition leader and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi despite stiff international pressure for her release, a Home Ministry source said today.

The source said it was unclear if the extension was for six months or one year, as it has often been in the past.

As her previous six-month term of detention expired on Saturday, the ruling generals of the former Burma stepped up security outside Suu Kyi's lakeside home in the capital. Armed police and barricades prevented any traffic from passing.

After Suu Kyi, 60, was allowed to meet a senior United Nations official a week ago, members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party had been quietly hoping the military might release her.

Amid the growing optimism and international diplomatic pressure, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan made a direct appeal on Friday to junta supremo Than Shwe to free her.

"I take this opportunity to appeal to General Than Shwe and the government to release her," Annan said in a statement. "I am relying on you, General Than Shwe, to do the right thing."

Suu Kyi has spent more than 10 of the past 16 years behind bars or under house arrest. Her latest stretch of detention started "for her own safety" on May 30, 2003 after clashes between her supporters and pro-junta demonstrators.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win said it was "still very difficult to say for sure" how long she would remain under house arrest and virtually incommunicado. Her telephone line is cut, and her only visitors are her housemaid and doctor.

However, Nyan Win said the NLD would still go ahead with a ceremony on Saturday marking the anniversary of 1990 elections in which the NLD humiliated the junta at the ballot box, winning 392 of 485 parliamentary seats.

Despite their crushing defeat, the military, which has run Myanmar under one form or another since 1962, refused to accept the result and cede any power.

The junta's decision to prolong her detention sparked immediate criticism from the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean), one of the few international groups willing to have the generals as members.

With Myanmar unable or unwilling to embrace any meaningful democratic reform, Asean has seen its relations with the United States and Europe sour amid accusations of failing to put enough pressure on its "black sheep" member.

Current Asean chairman Malaysia said it was surprised and disappointed by the events in Yangon.

"I was hoping for a positive (result) after the visit, that they would not extend the arrest," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters.

He added that he hoped to meet Myanmar's foreign minister at a Non-Aligned Movement ministerial meeting opening in Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

- REUTERS