Monday, 14 June 2010 20:12 Salai Han Thar San
New Delhi (Mizzima) – Burma’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi is glad her National League for Democracy party’s member are united despite its automatic dissolution in accordance with the junta’s one-sided electoral laws, the opposition leader said in a two-hour meeting with a lawyer and engineers on Friday.
Suu Kyi’s comments came during a meeting with her lawyer to discuss the revocation by the Rangoon civic body of a permit allowing her to dismantle a badly damaged wooden building inside her compound on University Avenue Road, Rangoon Division, where she is being held under house arrest.
“I’m very glad that all of NLD members, including young members and women, are very united even at the difficult time”, lawyer and NLD central executive committee member Nyan Win told Mizzima, quoting Suu Kyi.
“She said it was the duty of government, political parties and people to raise the young people,” Nyan Win said. “She said when we provide moral support to nations’ young, it must be done with generosity and comradeship.”
Suu Kyi also said party members needed to help the people clearly understand democracy. According to her, political parties and the people were responsible for understanding democratic values and putting them into practice, Nyan Win said.
Authorities had allowed Suu Kyi to meet on June 11 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. lawyer Nyan Win and engineers Khun Thar Myint and Htin Kyaw, whom Suu Kyi assigned to monitor renovations at her crumbling villa beside Inya Lake.
The Nobel Peace laureate’s compound at No. 54-56 University Avenue Road in Bahan Township comprises the main building, a badly damaged wooden house and two huts – one a gatehouse and another adjacent to the lake.
The wooden house is 25 feet (eight metres) east of the main building and is overrun with bushes. The Rangoon City Development Committee approved on June 4 Suu Kyi’s application to have it demolished but the permit was revoked the following day.
Nyan Win explained the city’s reasoning: “They [the Rangoon committee] said that as the house [compound] was subject to an inheritance case … if the wooden house was destroyed, the compound would lose its original [historic] character.”
He said he would submit an appeal to the Rangoon mayor next week.
Meanwhile, Suu Kyi said members should celebrate her 65th birthday on June 19 at the home of Mogoke member of parliament May Hnin Kyi at 10 Miles Gone in Mingaladon Township, Rangoon, Nyan Win said, amid fears that a gathering at party headquarters would provoke a crackdown by the junta.
“In accordance with her [Suu Kyi] request, we will donate books and pencils to underprivileged students [at the anniversary celebrations]”, Nyan Win said.
Suu Kyi will have to spend her birthday in detention amid a continuing 18-month sentence imposed for “entertaining” uninvited American visitor John Yettaw, who on May 4 last year had swum uninvited across Inya Lake and stayed at her house for two nights. She was similarly forced to spend her 64th birthday in a special room at Insein Prison as the prosecution over Yettaw’s visit was being processed.
Yettaw’s trespass occurred two weeks before Suu Kyi’s scheduled release from house arrest on May 27 last year.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
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