Myanmar’s detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi rejected food delivered to her home amid speculation that she has launched a hunger strike to protest the government’s refusal to hold talks on democratic reforms.
Nyan Win, spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD), said yesterday he could not confirm whether the Nobel laureate was refusing to eat, but said bags of food delivered on Monday to a checkpoint outside her heavily guarded house were not picked up.
Aung Sang Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years and she relies on the NLD’s food deliveries for survival. It remains unclear whether she has launched a hunger strike — since her supporters are barred from meeting her.
Nyo Ohn Myint, head of foreign affairs for the NLD (Liberated Area), which is based in Thailand, said the 63-year-old Aung Sang Suu Kyi has refused the food deliveries since Aug. 15 and would continue doing so until her demands are met.
But he could not say whether that constitutes a hunger strike, since his group has no direct contact with her.
Aung Sang Suu Kyi told the regime that she wants a resumption of talks with the government on national reconciliation, the installation of a satellite dish in her house and the freedom for her personal assistant, Khin Win, to leave whenever she wants.
It is unclear how she communicated her demands to the regime or passed messages to her party.
“If Daw Aung San Suu Kyi continues to refuse food from her comrades, her health will be of serious concern,” the NLD (Liberated Area), said in a statement.
“Two people living with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi are also refusing food. The international community’s immediate action is necessary,” it said.
The news comes after Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly canceled meetings with UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari during his six-day visit to Myanmar that ended on Saturday. Since refusing to see Gambari, supporters have speculated that Aung San Suu Kyi has grown more frustrated with the UN’s failure to bring about change in the military-ruled nation.
On Sunday, Nyan Win said Gambari had wasted his time in Myanmar.
He also criticized the envoy for failing to meet the country’s leader, General Than Shwe, and for being unable to get any commitment from the junta to start talks with the opposition on national reconciliation.
Nyan Win also castigated Gambari for offering to help the junta prepare for planned 2010 elections.
The NLD has criticized the planned polls, which follow a constitutional referendum earlier this year that critics say was neither free nor fair.
The new Constitution guarantees 25 percent of parliamentary seats to the military, and allows the president to hand over all power to the military in a state of emergency.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS