Aung San Suu Kyi in Cautious Move Outside Downtown Yangon

May 18, 2002 - 0:0
YANGON -- Myanmar's recently freed pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi made a cautious first visit to a party office outside the downtown Yangon area on Friday morning, a source from the National League for Democracy said. "Aung San Suu Kyi visited the Shwepyitha township office of the NLD," the source told AFP, emphasizing that she had not left Yangon. "She has not gone out of the capital. This was a routine trip to one of the Satellite township offices, which have been open since last year. She went to reorganize the youth group there." Shwepyitha township lies around 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of downtown Yangon, adjacent to Insein township. Aung San Suu Kyi was released on May 6 after 19 months under house arrest at her lakeside villa. She has said that the military regime has not placed any conditions on her release, and that she is now free to travel where she wishes. But observers have said that the Nobel Peace Laureate would likely maintain a discreet profile in order not to provoke the military regime, in a new spirit of cooperation between the two sides. Aung San Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest in September 2000 when she tried to leave the capital on party business for the northern city of Mandalay. "This is the beginning of routine visits to township offices," the NLD source said. Aung San Suu Kyi travelled to Shwepyitha by car, accompanied by the NLD's Vice Chairman Tin Oo and Soe Myint, Chairman of the Yangon division of the NLD supervisory committee of the township offices, he said. She visited the office from 10 to 1130 am (0330 to 0500 GMT) to help organize the filling of vacant positions on the youth group's organizing committee, he added. Aung San Suu Kyi's priority since her release has been to reorganize her NLD Party, which won a landslide election victory in 1990 that was never recognized by the military.