Mizzima News: Aung San Suu Kyi agrees to accept fresh food supplies - Solomon

Mon 15 Sep 2008
Filed under: News, Inside Burma
Burma’s detained opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will accept fresh food supplies on Monday, after refusing deliveries for a month, her party – National League for Democracy – spokesperson said.

“She has agreed to accept food supplies again, so preparations are on to send food this evening,” Nyan Win, spokesman of the NLD told Mizzima.


Nyan Win said, the Nobel Peace Laureate has decided to accept food after the ruling junta partially granted some of her demands including her right to receive international news magazines and to receive mails from families and to allow her aides to go out.

“She decided to accept food again because the authorities allowed some points of her demands,” said Nyan Win.

But Nyan Win failed to clarify why the Burmese democracy icon has been refusing fresh food supplies since mid-August.

Rather, he said, the detained party leader had made her demands known to the junta authorities through her personal lawyer Kyi Win, who in two months was allowed four visits to her.

Following his fourth visit on Thursday, Kyi Win said the government had partially granted some of Aung San Suu Kyi’s demands.

In early September, rumours began circulating that the detained pro-democracy leader is staging a hunger strike against her illegal detention.

Nyan Win on Monday, said it was not true saying, “[Aung san Suu Kyi] told her lawyer that she is not on hunger strike but managed by eating a very limited amount of food in those days.”

He added that due to the limited food that she had to manage with for a month, Aung San Suu Kyi is now feeling weak and needed rest.

“She also told her lawyer that she wants to meet U Aung Kyi, when she is in better health,” said Nyan Win.

Earlier, Aung San Suu Kyi had turned down a meeting with Aung Kyi, the junta’s liason minister, on the ground that she is weak and needed rest, her lawyer Kyi Win said.

On Sunday, Aung San Suu Kyi was allowed a visit by her family doctor Tin Myo Win, who examined her for more than four hours.

While Dr. Tin Myo Win could not be reached for comment, Nyan Win said, “According to a recent agreement [between the government and Aung San Suu Kyi] Tin Myo Win will be allowed to visit her once a month.”

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent more than 12 of the past 19 years under house arrest. She was last arrested in May 2003. Her lawyer and her party members said the Burmese law does not permit her to be detained for more than five consecutive years.

But the ruling junta in May renewed her detention period saying their interpretation of the Burmese law allows them to detain her up to a maximum of six years.