Suu Kyi lieutenant Tin Oo in good health: Red Cross

Suu Kyi lieutenant Tin Oo in good health: Red Cross

Associated Press, Yangon/Putrajaya, Malaysia

International Red Cross officials met with opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi's lieutenant, Tin Oo, in a prison in northern Myanmar
and found him unhurt and in good health, an official said on
Tuesday.

Red Cross officials visited various prisons and met with
several other opposition activists who were detained along with
Suu Kyi and Tin Oo after a May 30 clash with a pro-government mob
in northern Myanmar, said Alfredo Mallet, deputy representative
of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yangon.

The government said four people were killed in the violence,
but unconfirmed reports from dissidents put the number at 70.

Tin Oo, vice chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) party, had not been heard of for nearly four
weeks. There were fears that he was badly injured or killed in
the clash.

"The ICRC is very happy that they have been allowed to meet
prisoners detained in connection with the May 30 event. The team
had met NLD vice chairman Tin Oo at a prison in upper Myanmar. He
is in good health and he is not hurt," Mallet told The Associated
Press.

The British government has said that Suu Kyi is being held in
the notorious Insein prison outside Yangon. But diplomats said
Gen. Khin Nyunt, the junta's No. 3 leader, told visiting Japanese
Vice Foreign Minister Tetsuro Yano on Monday that Suu Kyi is not
in any prison. The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since her detention, only United Nations special envoy Razali
Ismail has been allowed to see Suu Kyi. They met briefly in a
government guesthouse on June 10.

The government turned down a Red Cross request to see Suu Kyi.

"We will continue to ask the authorities to give access to
Aung San Suu Kyi," Mallet said.

The government has said Suu Kyi's detention is temporary, but
has refused to give a date for her release, despite an
international outcry.

Mallet declined to say how many prisoners the ICRC team has
met since starting the tour on Sunday. He said Tin Oo is not
being held in Mandalay but in a prison somewhere in northern
Myanmar.

Suu Kyi's detention and the crackdown on the NLD has further
jeopardized an already rocky 2 1/2-year-old reconciliation
process between Suu Kyi and the junta.

The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-
democracy movement. They held elections in 1990 but refused to
hand over power to Suu Kyi's party after it won a landslide
victory.

Opposition groups say last month's clash was orchestrated by
the ruling junta.

In another development, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad on Tuesday repeated his call for Myanmar's military
government to immediately release Suu Kyi.

"I hope that the Myanmar regime will take into account the
views expressed by other countries, especially ASEAN in this
matter, because this has placed ASEAN in a dilemma," Mahathir
said at a news conference. He did not elaborate.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) last week
told Myanmar's junta to free Suu Kyi -- an unprecedented demand
for the association, which has a core policy of not interfering
in its 10 member nations' internal affairs. Similar calls have
come from the United Nations, the United States and other
countries.

Mahathir, 77, has led Malaysia for almost 22 years and is
considered an elder statesman within ASEAN. He was crucially
involved in getting Myanmar accepted into the group, and helped
broker moves toward reconciliation between the junta and NLD.