SUU KYI TAPE: Release of prisoners 'key to talks'

Published on Aug 8, 2002

Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has made an urgent plea to the international community to pressure the military government to release more than 1,000 political prisoners.

"The release of political prisoners is the most important thing for all those who truly wish to bring about change in Burma," Suu Kyi said in a videotape distributed in Bangkok yesterday - one day before the twelfth anniversary of the August 8, 1988 popular uprising against military rule.

The taped message was made available by Altsean-Burma, a regional human rights group promoting human rights and policy change in Burma.

"We would like to call upon everybody who cares for the future of Burma to support the request, the demand for the release of all political prisoners, speedily and unconditionally," the 1991 Nobel peace laureate said.

"Unless political organisations are free to go about their work unhindered and unintimidated by the authorities, we can never say that we have started the process toward changed democracy," she said.

In a statement released yesterday, the All Burma Students Democracy Front demanded the junta and Suu Kyi's opposition party, the National League for Democracy, publicise the substance of their dialogue.

The organisation also demanded that the junta release all political prisoners and allow political parties to engage in their activities freely.

Suu Kyi said the release of political prisoners was necessary if the process of national reconciliation was to go forward, adding that many detainees had been locked up merely because of their political affiliations.

The junta has released about 300 political prisoners since October 2000 as a goodwill gesture, but more than 1,000 more are estimated to still be in jail.

Suu Kyi was released from 19 months of house arrest on May 6. She was also under house arrest from 1989 to 1995.

She has been allowed to travel domestically, visiting branches of her National League for Democracy party and several development projects.

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