Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi spent her 62nd birthday under house arrest on Tuesday while her supporters marked the event at her National League for Democracy’s headquarters in Rangoon.
According to Myint Thein, a spokesman for NLD, about 100 people—most likely from the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association and the “Swan Arr Shin,” a paramilitary group—were gathered outside NLD’s headquarters when Suu Kyi’s birthday was celebrated.
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He said: “A military truck monitored the area and gave orders to the group around NLD’s headquarters. About 100 people were around the area with batons. We saw many threats. If they don’t stop actions like this, it’s not a good sign for the country's national reconciliation.”
Three NLD’s members who attended the celebration were arrested by authorities, he added.
Sources in Rangoon said that authorities began reinforcing security near Suu Kyi’s Inya lakeside residence and extended barbed wire barricades on her street since Monday night.
Other NLD members in Shwebo in Sagaing Division also were threatened by a military-backed mob that threw stones at the NLD office and placed sharp rivets that can puncture a motorbike's tire on a road near the building, according to Tint Tint, an NLD member.
Suu Kyi has spent more than 11 of the past 17 years under house arrest. The latest round of house arrest began on May 30, 2003, when her motorcade was ambushed by a government-orchestrated mob in Depayin, in Burma’s northwest Sagaing Division.
However, an article written on Tuesday in state-run newspaper The New Light of Myanmar criticized the democracy leader: “Daw Suu Kyi destroys the country and breaks up the unity of ethnic minorities inside the country. She is also a main factor in the murder of her father. She married a foreigner. She is a destroyer.”
Despite calls from the leaders of various countries and activists worldwide, there is no sign of Burma’s military government will release her, according to Aung Naing Oo, an exiled Burmese political analyst.
“The military sees Aung San Suu Kyi as a main rival for political power," he said. "Yet there is no hope for her release.”
