SCMP : Junta blocks food, water for

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Friday  July 31  1998

Junta blocks food, water for five days 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok 
Burmese authorities refused democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi food and
water and confiscated throat lozenges during five days she spent in her car
outside Rangoon, a US diplomat said last night.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's colleagues said yesterday she was ''very, very weak''
with dehydration and fever and ''furious'' at what she described as her
kidnapping.

US Ambassador to Burma Kent Wiedemann described the Government as brutal.

''I think the incident involving Aung San Suu Kyi these past seven days is
an extraordinary example of the Government's brutality and lack of
humanitarian behaviour depriving her of food and water in an environment in
which she could dehydrate rapidly,'' he said.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi accused the military of ''forcibly abducting her,
hijacking her car and using physical force'' to end the stand-off by
driving her white sedan home late on Wednesday night, according to the
chairman of her National League for Democracy political party Aung Shwe.

But the defiant Nobel Peace Prize winner told colleagues she would again
try to travel outside Rangoon to assert her right to meet members of her
own party.

When ''gentle persuasion'' failed to use the Government's description two
women officers jumped into the car on either side of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi
for the forced return to Rangoon.

Her drivers and a party official were taken back separately.

The Government claimed it had acted out of concern for her health. 

''We do not wish to see anybody's life wasted for no good reason and that
is the reason why we have taken this timely course of action,'' a spokesman
said.

Officials told diplomats Ms Aung San Suu Kyi had been offered food and
water a number of times during the stand-off. But Mr Wiedemann said this
''was simply not true''.

''She ran out of food after two days when she offered the police some money
to buy her some food they refused to do that,'' he said.

Members of her party who were permitted to see her on Wednesday were
stripped of all the food they were carrying for her.

''Even throat lozenges were confiscated in case they provided some sort of
nutrition,'' Mr Wiedemann said.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has called on Burma's military
rulers to conduct open talks with the opposition.