ASEAN monitors Suu Kyi in Myanmar, won't mediate

ASEAN monitors Suu Kyi in Myanmar, won't mediate

HANOI (Agencies): The Association of Southeast Asian Nations
said on Thursday it was monitoring the situation in Myanmar,
where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been confined to her
home, but had no intention of mediating.

"At various levels, ASEAN members are keeping an eye on what's
happening in Myanmar," the regional grouping's secretary general
Rodolfo Severino said. "But there is no question of mediation or
anything like that."

He was speaking on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting of
information ministers and deputies in Hanoi aimed at discussing
Internet strategies and promoting the 10-member ASEAN.

Suu Kyi, who leads the main opposition National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, has been restricted to her home with her
telephone cut and diplomatic access barred since Sept. 21.

Senior NLD officials have also been confined to their homes
and NLD vice-chairman U Tin Oo has been in detention since the
military government blocked a bid by Suu Kyi to travel from
Yangon to Mandalay by rail last month.

Myanmar officials attending the meeting in Hanoi said on
Thursday that Suu Kyi had been asked to stay in her home as a
security measure and when she was allowed to leave would depend
on conditions prevailing.

"For the time being for the security measure, we have
requested her to stay in her house," an official of Myanmar's
Information Ministry told Reuters.

"It is the right of every government to give its people
security, to give the country security," added Deputy Information
Minister Brig. Gen. Aung Thein.

Asked when the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate would be allowed to
leave her house, the general said: "This depends on the
conditions."

Myanmar has faced mounting international criticism this year
over its treatment of Suu Kyi and the NLD which won election in
1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern.

Suu Kyi met United Nations special envoy Razali Ismail at her
lakeside residence in central Yangon on Wednesday. Ismail has
also met senior officials of the ruling military.

Razali held a second meeting with Suu Kyi on Thursday on the
final day of a visit to Myanmar aimed at breaking the deadlock
between the opposition and the ruling junta.

The veteran Malaysian diplomat met the NLD leader at her
Yangon home at 8:30 a.m. (9 a.m. Jakarta time) and left at 10:45
a.m.), an opposition source told AFP.

He left Suu Kyi's house to hold a final meeting with Foreign
Minister Win Aung. He was accompanied to the airport in a
motorcade by Deputy Foreign Minister Khin Maung Win and departed
on a Silk Air flight bound for Singapore.

Severino, when asked about a reported proposal by UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan that ASEAN should mediate, he said: "I've
heard of such a thing, but I don't have authoritative
information."

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia,
Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

ASEAN agreed in July in Bangkok to form a "troika" of three
members to try to help resolve political and security disputes.
Last month, the Thai newspaper The Nation quoted diplomats as
saying Annan had suggested the troika help in Myanmar.

Communist Vietnam, the current ASEAN chair, said this month
"relevant" members had rejected a proposal as it would represent
interference in Yangon's internal affairs.