Protesters mark Suu Kyi's 60th birthday

BANGKOK - Opponents of Myanmar's military junta marked the 60th birthday of detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Sunday with solemn protests across Asia, including a 500-strong gathering in the capital of the former Burma.

In Washington, President Bush added his voice to the worldwide chorus of those demanding Yangon's generals release the Nobel Laureate from house arrest, and honor the results of 1990 elections they lost by a landslide.

Given the isolation and intransigence of those in charge of the former British colony, which has been under military rule for more than four decades, making noises and gestures from afar is just about all the junta's opponents can do.

"I send my best wishes to Aung San Suu Kyi for her 60th birthday," Bush said in a statement echoing the thoughts of other leaders and Nobel Laureates, including South African archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader.

"Her strength, courage, and personal sacrifice in standing up for the oppressed people of Burma have inspired those who stand for freedom," Bush said.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan was among those appealing yet again for the release of Suu Kyi, who has spent nine of the last 16 years behind bars or under house arrest. Her latest stretch of detention began in May 2003.

In Myanmar's leafy capital Yangon, where roadblocks around Suu Kyi's lakeside home keep away everybody except for her doctor, around 500 people met at the dilapidated headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

After a ceremony to raise money for other political prisoners, such as Suu Kyi's party number two, Tin Oo, members released ten pigeons and 60 helium-filled balloons into the air to chants of "Long live Aung San Suu Kyi."

Acros the road, dozens of plainclothes security policemen looked on, taking photographs and recording the event with video cameras.

"I miss her every second," 40-year-old sympathizer Ma Nyein Nyein told Reuters. "I still have a brother in prison. I pray for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, including Uncle U Tin Oo every day."

VIGILS, POEMS AND SONGS

In Bangkok, the center of operations for Myanmar exiles and refugees over the years until a Thai police crackdown on anti-junta dissent last year, the atmosphere was muted.

Around 100 policemen took up positions outside the Myanmar embassy to ward off protests that never happened. Instead, 60 people held a silent 61 minute vigil at a university campus.

There were similar scenes in Indonesia, itself a new democracy following the ousting of dictator Suharto in 1998, where actresses, politicians and human rights workers held poetry and letter readings in honor of "The Lady."

Later on Sunday, US rock band REM will dedicate a song to Suu Kyi at a concert in the Irish capital, Dublin.

Whatever the gestures, and whatever their volume, they are unlikely to make any difference to a government which appears immune to international pressure, be it US trade sanctions or bans on its sports minister going to the Olympic Games.

The generals say they are moving steadily toward democracy under a seven step "roadmap to democracy," but nobody believes them and the junta refuses visas to journalists, human rights workers or UN diplomats who want to find out for themselves.

"We need desperately a channel of communication because we have to know what is the future of the roadmap," said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the UN's Special Rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar who has not been allowed into Yangon since November 2003.

"At this moment we are in a sort of deadlock," he said.

- REUTERS