June 4, 2003	Wednesday	Rabi-us-Sani 3, 1424

BANGKOK: The Myanmar junta’s year of living dangerously, a year in which the generals permitted their most famous and determined opponent to travel freely around the country promoting their downfall, has come to a crashing halt.

Aung San Suu Kyi, whose non-violent campaign to bring democracy to the country formerly known as Burma earned her the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, is back in military custody.

“The Lady,” as she is known in Myanmar, was released from house arrest on May 6, 2002. At the time, the move was hailed as a milestone as the junta and Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), both vowed to carry out a dialogue aimed at national reconciliation.

Testing the military’s promise to allow her to travel freely, Suu Kyi made several cautious forays outside the capital. She travelled by motorcade, speaking to small crowds of supporters who dared to turn out despite military pressure to stay away.

But despite warnings and incentives to shun her, the crowds swelled. Fear was overcome by curiosity to see and hear the prim, sarong-clad widow who would almost certainly have become head of state if the NLD had been allowed to form a government after its landslide election victory in 1990.

Most Myanmar people have known no other government than military dictatorship. General Ne Win seized power in 1962 and snuffed out the country’s chances for prosperity as well as democracy in his disastrous “Burmese way to socialism”.

The spontaneous, nationwide pro-democracy demonstrations that toppled him from absolute power in 1988 sent a wave of fear through the military. At the peak of the anti-military protests, several soldiers were beheaded and their heads paraded through the streets on pikes, demonstrating the depth of anti-military sentiment.

Memories of the 1988 upheaval may help explain the timing and severity of the current crackdown.

Suu Kyi’s north-bound motorcade consisted of only three cars when it departed from Yangon on May 6. It had grown to more than 100 vehicles, including motorcycles, by the time it reached the northern city of Mandalay.

By then the Suu Kyi road show was playing to enthusiastic audiences of thousands, many of them shouting “long live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi”.

Provincial military commanders became alarmed as she was greeted by larger and larger crowds, including a gathering of about 40,000 on the morning of May 25 in the township of Kyat-Pyin.

Young members of the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) were recruited to block roads with logs and to throw rocks and fire slingshots at Suu Kyi’s convoy.

The provocations resulted in a series of clashes, according to NLD sources. On the night of May 25 two NLD members were hit by stones thrown and fired from slingshots in Ngar-pyar-pay village of Mandalay Division, 600 kilometres north of Yangon.

In a response that may have seemed naive, NLD vice chairman, U. Tin Oo filed a formal complaint over the incident at the Sint-gu police station on Monday.

Rather than investigate the incident, the government launched a media broadside, accusing the NLD of fomenting violence by daring to criticize military rule.

The attacks on the Suu Kyi convoy finally came to a climax on the night of May 30. Dissident sources claimed the military beefed up its force of USDA thugs by recruiting convicts from nearby Mandalay Prison, promising them freedom in return for taking part in attacks on the NLD motorcade.

“Now it seems the junta had planned a carefully organized, but thuggish, crime against Suu Kyi,” commented Aung Zaw a Thailand-based anti-junta activist and editor. “Fear over her popularity and rising pro-democracy crowds clearly caused many sleepless nights for those who have illegally run the country for more than a decade.”

At a news conference the following day, the junta claimed four people were killed and 50 injured in the Friday night clash. NLD sources said the death toll may have been as high as 70. Whatever the true figure, the clash was used as a pretext to close down all NLD offices nationwide.

Military officials said Suu Kyi and 19 of her top party officials were being held in a “secure location”. They refused to confirm or deny reports she was thrown into the junta’s most infamous jail and torture chamber in northern Yangon, Insein Prison.—dpa