Agencies

Yangon, June 19:

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, the detained leader of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement, turned 60 today alone and under house arrest as her supporters here and around the world demanded her freedom. For the woman known affectionately as “The Lady”, the day was probably much like any other in the past two years she has been under house arrest, allowed no visitors besides a doctor and with her telephone line cut. But at the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD), hundreds of people gathered to mark the occasion and security was visibly tighter than normal there and outside her home. Ten Buddhist monks in orange robes started the day by chanting at dawn inside the dilapidated NLD headquarters.

Security forces watched and videotaped the event. Inside the headquarters, NLD central executive committee chairman Aung Shwe read a statement before about 400 guests including diplomats, saying the party prayed for the “longevity, blissfulness and proper health” of Aung San Suu Kyi. He also hinted at the party’s readiness for talks with the ruling junta.

World leaders including US President George W Bush and the foreign ministers of Germany and Myanmar’s former colonial ruler Britain called for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release and praised her as a symbol of freedom.

In Thailand the respected Thammasat University in Bang-kok awarded her an honorary degree, while a dozen other cities around the world, from Tokyo to Paris, planned various activities, according to pro-democracy exile groups. Despite the clamour for her freedom, Aung San Suu Kyi was unlikely to receive any birthday wishes herself, with her phone cut off as part of the junta’s effort to isolate her completely. She may be able to hear of the protests on a short-wave radio, but few expected the global calls for her release to sway the country’s reclusive generals, who have shown themselves impervious to international demands. Her friends and relatives said the junta was unlikely to allow her any special privileges for her 60th birthday. “Her house arrest this time around is much worse than it has ever been before,” a close friend of the family told AFP.