YANGON, Sept 18: Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has undergone surgery for gynaecological problems at a private hospital in Yangon, an exiled Myanmar group said on Thursday.
Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, was recovering at the Asia Royal Hospital after undergoing an operation on her uterus on Thursday morning, the group said, citing sources in Yangon.
“Suu Kyi negotiated with the authorities to have the operation performed by her doctor. He is with her now,” Zin Linn, media director for the exiled National Coalition Government, said in Bangkok.
Zin Linn said he did not have details of Suu Kyi’s condition, but she was expected to stay in hospital for a few days.
A hospital official had earlier denied a report by Japan’s Kyodo news agency that Suu Kyi had undergone surgery.
“This is not true,” hospital administration officer Myat Thu told reporters.
But Yangon doctors said she had entered the hospital and the ninth floor had been sealed off for a VIP operation. Plainclothes security men were seen in the building.
“It is quite true. I have friends who work at the hospital and they say she was there,” said one doctor.
Myanmar’s military junta has kept Suu Kyi, 58, at an undisclosed location since May 30, after a bloody clash between her followers and government supporters in northern Myanmar.
The junta says she is being held for her own protection and has ignored an international outcry over her detention, saying it will free her when political temperatures cool.
Special envoys from the United Nations and Indonesia are awaiting permission to visit Myanmar to check on Suu Kyi’s condition and press for her release.
The United States, which has imposed tough new sanctions on Myanmar, said earlier this month it had “credible reporting” that Suu Kyi was on a hunger strike, which Yangon vehemently denied.
Red Cross officials visited Suu Kyi later and said she was well and not refusing food.
The slight, Oxford-educated Suu Kyi suffers from a chronic stomach condition and requires a special diet.
Suu Kyi has been in and out of detention for the past 14 years. She led the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) to victory in a 1990 general election but the military prevented her party from taking office. —Reuters
