May 28, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 22, 1429

YANGON, May 27: Myanmar’s junta extended the house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a home ministry source said, in a move likely to dismay Western nations who promised millions of dollars in aid after the Cyclone Nargis.

The source, who asked not to be named, said a government official drove to Suu Kyi’s lakeside Yangon villa to read out the extension order in person. The source said it was for six months, although a Yangon-based diplomat said it was for a year.

The 62-year-old Nobel laureate, whose National League for Democracy (NLD) party won a 1990 election landslide only to be denied power by the army, has now spent nearly 13 of the last 18 years under some form of arrest.

Her latest period of detention started on May 30, 2003 “for her own protection” after clashes between her supporters and pro-junta thugs in the northern town of Depayin. The last of a series of year-long extensions expired on Tuesday.

Earlier, the junta arrested 20 people trying to march to Suu Kyi’s home.

Although few expected Suu Kyi to be released, the extension is a timely reminder of the ruling military’s refusal to make any concessions on the domestic political front despite its grudging acceptance of foreign help after the May 2 cyclone.

Army-controlled media on Tuesday praised the United Nations for the help it has given to the 2.4 million people left destitute in the Irrawaddy delta, suggesting a thaw in the junta’s frosty relationship with the outside world.

The English-language New Light of Myanmar said UN agencies took “prompt action” to provide relief supplies after the cyclone, which left 134,000 people dead or missing.

The paper, the generals’ main mouthpiece, also softened the government’s line that the immediate relief phase of the disaster was over, saying instead that “rescue and rehabilitation tasks have been carried out to some extent”.

US President George W. Bush said he was “deeply troubled” by the extension of Suu Kyi’s house arrest and called for political prisoners to be freed, but State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said it would not affect US cyclone assistance.

“We have tried to separate out these two things,” he said.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain’s immediate focus was also on post-cyclone relief, but that restoration of democracy was vital in the long term.

Three weeks after the cyclone’s 120 mph (190 kph) winds and sea surge devastated the delta, the United Nations says fewer than one in three of those most in need have received any aid.

Thousands of beggars line the roads, and droves of children shout “Just throw something!” at passing vehicles.

Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and the waterways of the former Burma’s “rice bowl” remain littered with bloated and rotting animal carcasses and corpses.

Much of the blame for the aid delay rests with the junta, which has been reluctant to admit a large-scale international relief effort for fear of loosening the vice-like grip on power the army has held since a 1962 coup.

However, top diplomats who helped coordinate a donor conference in Yangon on Sunday said there were small signs of the generals overcoming their pride and paranoia.—Reuters