Suu Kyi wants colleagues freed before her

Burma’s detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will not accept freedom until all those arrested with her five months ago are released, a United Nations human rights envoy said today.

“She wants to be the last person to have access to freedom of movement,” the envoy, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, said on the last day of a weeklong mission investigating human rights in the military-ruled country.

He met with Suu Kyi at her lakeside home for two hours on Thursday.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been detained since a bloody clash in northern Burma on May 30 between her supporters and a pro-junta mob.

She was first held at an undisclosed location and then under house arrest at her Yangon residence.

Pinheiro said 35 people remain in jail in connection with the May 30 incident and 101 have been freed.

In addition, eight senior members of her National League for Democracy remain under house arrest, he said.

The UN envoy said Suu Kyi told him that “she will not accept any privilege or freedom of movement before all the people detained since May 30 including her eight colleagues (are) released”.

The government said after the clash that Suu Kyi was being detained under an emergency security law.

But Pinheiro said he was told by authorities this week that she is “not held under any security law.” The government has not said this publicly.

It was not clear if that meant Suu Kyi was free to leave her home or whether she was being held under some other law. Pinheiro refused to clarify.

He also declined to give an account of Suu Kyi’s health but said she was in good spirits.

“She wants an independent investigation of the (May 30) incident. She wants accountability and justice but not revenge,” Pinheiro said.

“Sometimes tragic incidents could become the foundation for change,” he said.

Pinheiro is the only outsider who has been allowed to meet with Suu Kyi other than the UN special envoy to Burma, Razali Ismail, and Red Cross officials.

Her detention has provoked widespread international criticism of the junta, which has refused to give up power it seized in 1988 despite losing elections in 1990 to Suu Kyi’s party.