Former world leaders call for Aung San Suu Kyi's release

May 15, 2007, 3:55 GMT

Bangkok - Almost 60 former world leaders and heads of state on Tuesday issued a letter to Myanmar's junta leader urging him to immediately release Aung San Suu Kyi, who will have spent the last four years under house arrest on May 27.

'We are writing this public letter to call for the immediate release of the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi,' said the letter to Senior General Than Shwe.

The appeal, organized by former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik - founder of the Oslo Centre for Peace and Human Rights, was signed by 59 former worlds leaders including Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton of the US, Chuan Leekpai of Thailand, Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic, Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, Mahathir Mohamed of Malaysia, Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia and Lech Walesa of Poland, among others.

A copy of the letter was made available in Bangkok.

Their appeal follows a similar request for Suu Kyi's release by United Nations human rights experts on May 10 and by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party on Monday.

'For the sake of national reconciliation we call for the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi unconditionally at the earliest time,' said the NLD declaration delivered to junta leader Than Shwe.

Suu Kyi and her deputy Tin Oo were arrested in Depeyin, Sagaing Division in northern Myanmar on May 27, 2003, on charges of causing unrest after a gang of thugs, reportedly hired by the military, attacked her entourage and killed 70 of her followers.

She was brought back to Yangon and placed under house arrest for three years. The sentence was extended by another year in 2006.

Yangon-based observers believe Suu Kyi will be kept under house arrest until a new constitution is drafted and an election held, a process that could take years.

'We strongly urge you to respond to the United Nations and countless other countries and regional groupings around the world by releasing Aung San Suu Kyi before May 27th and committing to participate in peaceful, tripartite dialogue as outlined by the General Assembly,' said the letter to Than Shwe signed by the 59 former world leaders.

Suu Kyi was first put under house arrest in her family's Yangon compound in 1989, for insulting former military strongman Ne Win at a political rally.

She has spent 11 of the past 17 years under detention, the past four in almost complete isolation.

Suu Kyi, the daughter of Myanmar's independence hero General Aung San, was given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 for her heroic efforts to bring democracy to her homeland.

Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962, when a coup staged by Ne Win overthrew the elected government of Prime Minister U Nu and put Myanmar, then called Burma, on it disastrous path to army-led socialism and isolationism.