World

Crackdown in Myanmar

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

August 25, 2000 / 6:05 PM EDT / CBS

Myanmar security forces who forced pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi to end a nine-day roadside standoff Saturday also raided her political party's headquarters, seizing documents and sealing the offices, party sources said.

The two-pronged crackdown was the latest development in more than a week of tension between Nobel laureate Suu Kyi and the iron-fisted military government of this southeast Asian nation.

U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Saturday she was "outraged" by the Myanmar military's crackdown.

"The United States is outraged and strongly condemns the Burmese authorities' treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members and the violations of their fundamental human rights," Albright said in a statement.

The government said that the group was "escorted" back home at 1.30 a.m. (1800 GMT Friday) but members of Suu Kyi's NLD party said the group was "brought back forcefully" to Yangon.

"At this time, we are unable to confirm her well-being or that of other members of her party," Albright said.

The democracy activist and members of her NLD party were stopped by police on Aug. 24 in the Yangon suburb of Dala on their way to conduct political activities in the countryside.

The group, including two senior members of the party and 12 members of its youth wing, was blocked from traveling further and ordered to return to Yangon. They camped out in their two vehicles and refused to move.

It was the first time Suu Kyi tried to leave the capital since a similar roadside confrontation in 1998 that lasted 13 days until deteriorating health and dehydration forced her to return home in an ambulance.

Suu Kyi and the other activists' roadside camp.

This time Suu Kyi appeared to have planned in advance for a possible roadblock and had taken ample food and water with her and had access to fresh supplies from local people and her supporters.

Myanmar was called Burma until a military coup in 1988.

Suu Kyi is the daughter of Aung San, a Burmese nationalist who led the struggle for Burma's independence from Britain and Japan until his assassination in 1947, a year before Burma became independent.

Suu Kyi was held under house arrest for six years ending in 1995 and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. The U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Myanmar in 1997.