July 20, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 16, 1429

YANGON: Myanmar’s pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest on Saturday as others gathered to pay tribute to her late father on Martyrs’ day.

Suu Kyi had not been invited to attend the annual ceremony by the ruling military, according to an official from her National League for Democracy party.

“She wasn’t invited to attend the ceremony, although the authorities used to send her an invitation,” the official said.

Martyrs’ day commemorates the assassination of General Aung San and eight other leaders on July 19, 1947, while they were holding a meeting for Myanmar independence from Britain.

The military government hosted a short memorial early on Saturday morning at the Martyrs’ mausoleum close to the famous Shwe Dagon pagoda in the country’s main city Yangon.

The mayor, Brigadier General Aung Thein Linn, some government officials and family members of the country’s late leaders all attended the 61st anniversary event.

But invitations to foreign embassies were cancelled by the foreign affairs ministry without reason, the diplomats confirmed.

Suu Kyi was only two-years-old when she lost her father. Myanmar got its independence a year later in January 1948.

Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the last 18 years under house arrest and has currently been detained since 2003.

About 300 NLD members gathered in front of party headquarters on Saturday morning, saluting the spot where the leaders were gunned down.

Amid tight security and with armed police trucks present, the gathering was peaceful with no shouting or marching as has been known in previous years.

But the NLD reiterated its call for the immediate and unconditional release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners.

Earlier this month 14 Suu Kyi supporters were charged for protesting against the extension of her house arrest.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. The NLD won a landslide victory in 1990 elections but the junta never allowed them to take office.

—AFP