Myanmar activists visit Aung San Suu Kyi's cousins

May 20, 2007, 9:07 GMT

Yangon - Keeping one step ahead of Myanmar's military regime in their new forms of passive protests, a group of political activists paid a sympathy call Sunday on two surviving cousins of Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's imprisoned opposition leader.

About 70 members of the 88 Generation Students group paid a courtesy call at the apartment of Cho Aung Than and Nge Ma Ma Than in Yankin township in Yangon, to express their condolences for the ongoing incarceration of Suu Kyi who has been under house arrest since May 27, 2003.

Aung Than and Nge Ma Ma Than are the son and daughter of Aung Than, the elder brother of Aung San, Myanmar's independence hero and father of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The 88 Generation Students group, a name designed to recall the important role played by Myanmar's students in the 1988 anti-military demonstrations that eventually brought Suu Kyi into Myanmar's political maelstrom, have been staging mass prayers and other forms of passive protests for Suu Kyi's release as the anniversary of the fourth year under house arrest looms on May 27.

Visiting Suu Kyi's cousins was a new tactic, which apparently caught Myanmar's security personnel by surprise, as they failed to prevent the gesture, eyewitnesses said.

The visit was led by Min Ko Naing and included other 88 Generation Students leaders such as Ko Ko Gyi, Ko Htay Kywe, Ko Pyone Cho, Ko Mya Aye, Ko Jimmy, Ant Bwe Kyaw, Myo Khin and Naw Ohn Hla.

'Our prayer is for immediate release of Daw (Mrs) Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners,' said Min Ko Naing.

The visitors signed the wish for release of Suu Kyi at her cousins' apartment and then left.

Ko Tun Myint was one of the survivors at Depeyin episode, in which army-recruited thugs attacked Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party members in upper Myanmar on May 27, 2003, killing 70 of them and slightly injuring Suu Kyi.

While her assailants were freed, Suu Kyi and NLD deputy leader Tin Oo were put under house arrest for disturbing the peace and have languished in near-complete isolation in their Yangon homes for the past four years.

Suu Kyi, 61, who won the Nobel peace prize in 1991 for leading a heroic but so far unsuccessful struggle for democracy in Myanmar, has been under house arrest for 12 of the past 17 years.