(Petaling Jaya, Friday): Malaysia and other ASEAN nations must show the world that they are concerned about the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma by deploring the military junta’s "kidnapping" of Burmese Opposition Leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to end her six-day car sit-in protest against violation of her fundamental right to free movement in her own country.
Aung San Suu Kyi yesterday said the Burmese government kidnapped her to end the six-day standoff, saying police held her down, took the wheel of her car and forcibly drove her back to the capital.
A feverish Suu Kyi was lying in the back seat of her car, where she had slept for five straight nights, when two policewomen held her down and other officers ejected two of her party colleagues from the front seat. Another officer took the wheel and drove the car from the bridge on a rural road 20 miles west of the capital and forcibly took her to her Rangoon home against her will.
Leaders of National League of Democracy (NLD) said Suu Kyi had been determined to continue the standoff until the military agreed to open a dialogue with her and her party, something the generals have refused to do.
The Burmese military junta has installed police checkpoints near Suu Kyi’s home, refusing journalists entry and restricted access by diplomats and party members.
Let Malaysia and the other ASEAN member countries send a strong protest note at the increasing harrassment of Aung San Suu Kyi and NLD leaders and followers in recent months, and to demand that the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) should take regional and international opinion seriously by embarking on a programme of democratisation and national reconciliation by opening a dialogue with pro-democracy forces and the various nationalities.
(31/7/98)