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.