World

Myanmar's Suu Kyi 'in poor health'

by Barbara McPherson | May 9, 2009 at 06:08 am

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Burmese democracy leader Aung San Sui Kyi is reported to be in poor health. She has been under house arrest in Burma since 1989 for agitating for a return to democratic government. The party that she led won the subsequent elections by a wide margin, but was never allowed to take power. The military continue to govern the country, renaming it Myanmar.
Aung San Sui Kyi's release has been called for by many prestigious people and organizations, to no avail.

Myanmar's opposition party has said Aung San Suu Kyi, its leader, is in poor health - she is not eating, is dehydrated and has low blood pressure.

Nyan Win, the spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD), said on Saturday that the opposition leader, who has spent most of the past 19 years under house arrest, is "not in good health".

Authorities arrested Tin Myo Win, Suu Kyi's doctor, on Thursday after he went to the house to carry out a regular medical check-up on the opposition leader.

Official sources said the he had been denied permission to enter the house, but it was not explicitly stated why he had been detained.

On Wednesday, Myanmar authorities arrested a man identified as John Willian Yeattaw, a US national, after he swam across a lake to the off-limits compound where Suu Kyi is under house arrest.

The NLD won a landslide victory in elections in 1990 but the military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has never allowed the party to take office.

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