(Reuters, Yangon: November 8, 2003)

Myanmar's generals have freed democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, but she is refusing to accept liberty until 35 of her colleagues are released from detention, said U.N. envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro.

"'She will not accept any privilege or access to freedom of movement until everyone detained since May 30 has been released,'' Pinheiro told a news conference.

The U.N. human rights envoy said the ruling generals had told him during talks in Yangon this week that Suu Kyi, detained after a bloody clash between her followers and government supporters, was no longer under house arrest.

Pinheiro, who talked with Suu Kyi for two hours on Thursday, said she demanded the release of 35 of here colleagues in the National League for Democracy before she would even consider herself free.

She also demanded an inquiry into the May 30 violence, where each side blames the other, and for those responsible to be held accountable, she said.

''She wants justice, not revenge,'' the Brazilian academic added.

He quoted her as saying: ''Let's move forward. Let's work so it doesn't happen again."

However, Pinheiro said, the generals who have ruled Myanmar since 1962 ''have not yet agreed'' to his offer to conduct ''an independent assessment'' of the May violence and gave no indication on when Suu Kyi might move around again.

She has made similar pronouncements before during the long periods she has spent confined to her lakeside house in Yangon, including the last time when she emerged just weeks before the May violence.

Diplomatic sources said Suu Kyi emerged then because she was confident U.N. efforts to get the so-called national reconciliation talks restarted were going to be successful.

Instead, she was detained at a secret location after the violence -- for her own safety, according to the government -- from which she was allowed to go to hospital for surgery, then to house arrest in September.

Pinheiro made his own calls on the government to clear the way for talks with the NLD on moving towards democracy by freeing all political prisoners and re-opening political party offices.

He said the government should give ''credible indications'' on how and when the reforms it has long promised would be implemented.