Rangoon, Burma (BBN)– Burmese military rulers have okayed the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest.
Authorities signed her letter of release around 2:45 pm (local time), but details of the letter and when the junta would allow her to appear in public were unknown, Mizzima, a Burmese pro-democratic news agency, reported quoting sources in the opposition party.
Suu Kyi is the daughter of Burma’s independence leader General Aung San. She studied philosophy, politics and economics at the Oxford University. She returned to her country in 1988 and was put under house arrest in 1989 as the junta declared martial law.
Suu Kyi’s current house arrest term was to end Saturday but reports and witnesses in Rangoon outside her home where her current sentence has kept her for the past 18 months suggest, suggested today is the day.
As many as 1,000 supporters from the National League for Democracy (NLD) party’s youth wing, in T-shirts bearing Aung San Suu Kyi’s portrait and holding aloft her pictures, have gathered in front of NLD headquarters in Bahan Township, Rangoon, waiting for her release, witnesses told Mizzima. A banner reading “Today’s the day” adorns the entrance.
However, as dark fell, an NLD leader told supporters to return home. Ohn Kyaing, a National League for Democracy spokesman, reportedly said: “Even if Aung San Suu Kyi is released today, she will not come to the party headquarters. If so, she will come tomorrow. We told party members and her supporters to return home and come back … tomorrow, because she has yet to be released.”
BBN/SSR/AD-12Nov10-9:22 pm (BST)
