Reuters-Myanmar Says Suu Kyi Can Vi

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Subject: Reuters-Myanmar Says Suu Kyi Can Visit Dying Husband 

Myanmar Says Suu Kyi Can Visit Dying Husband
08:12 a.m. Mar 26, 1999 Eastern
By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government Friday offered to allow
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to visit her dying husband in Britain,
but said she had rejected it.

The government said in a statement that a senior military officer had
conveyed the offer to Suu Kyi Friday but she rejected it, abruptly ordering
him to leave her Yangon residence.

The government said she could return home after the trip but that its offer
was conditional on her not using a visit to Britain for political purposes,
a government spokesman said.

Suu Kyi and officials of her opposition National League for Democracy (NLD)
party were not immediately available for comment. Suu Kyi, leader of
Myanmar's pro-democracy movement and a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and her
supporters had feared that if she went to England to see her dying
52-year-old British husband, Michael Aris, the military might block her
return to Myanmar.

The opposition says the military has long sought a pretext for getting Suu
Kyi, the biggest thorn in its side, out of Myanmar.

The government said Friday: ``The government of Myanmar sees no difficulty
for Ms Suu Kyi in returning to Myanmar after her visit to see her husband,
believing that the trip be of a purely humanitarian and family concern.''

Political analysts said they were surprised at Suu Kyi's refusal to take up
the offer. Some said it could be because of the condition that she not make
it a political trip.

The government statement said: ``Ms Suu Kyi was offered all possible
assistance in fulfilling the gravely ill husband's dying wish to see her in
the remaining days before he enters the twilight of his existence.

``Regretfully, she refused the government's offer and the discussion
abruptly ended with the officer being indicated to leave her residence.''

``The government continues its offer to assist Ms Suu Kyi with all possible
humanitarian assistance during this critical stage of her husband's
illness,'' it added.

After Aris, an Oxford academic, applied for a visa to visit Suu Kyi in
Yangon, the government said last week that she should instead visit her
husband, who is dying of cancer.


It said Friday: ``The government remains sympathetic to the request by Mr.
Michael Aris for a visa to Myanmar. But it is also very concerned for him
being a terminally ill patient in travelling strenuously halfway round the
world to see his wife.''

``It is time that material ambitions be put aside, humanitarian needs being
put in the forefront with compassion and human values being prioritized.''

Suu Kyi says the military has in detention about 150 NLD members elected in
the country's last election in 1990. The NLD swept that poll but the
military refused to accept the results.

Suu Kyi's call late last year for the convening of a ''Peoples Parliament''
comprising MPs elected in the 1990 poll infuriated the ruling generals, who
then stepped up pressure on the NLD.