Asean appeal blocked-(BY BURMA JUNTA)

Oct 20, 2009


SINGAPORE - MYANMAR has scuttled a plan by fellow Asean members to issue a public appeal seeking amnesty for detained pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, a diplomatic source said Tuesday.

'They rejected it two months ago. They rejected the idea,' the South-east Asian diplomat told AFP just days before the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) leaders hold their annual summit in Thailand this weekend.

The source, who asked not to be named, said that while Ms Suu Kyi's plight could not be put on the formal Asean agenda, Myanmar could still be discussed during a closed-door 'retreat' in which some of the leaders could call for her release.

They could also ask that her party be allowed to contest elections planned for next year, the diplomat added.

The diplomat said he understood that a number of other countries backed Myanmar's position that a public appeal for amnesty for Ms Suu Kyi would amount to interference in its domestic affairs. Myanmar had vetoed previous efforts to use Asean meetings to openly discuss Suu Kyi's fate.

Asean senior officials who met in Jakarta in August had agreed to work on an amnesty call for the Nobel Peace laureate convicted in August for allowing an American man stay in her lakeside home after he swam uninvited to the compound. -- AFP http://www.straitst imes.com/ Breaking% 2BNews/SE% 2BAsia/Story/ STIStory_ 444407.html