BURMA: Burma's junta moved opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi to a "guest house" in the capital Rangoon yesterday two days after she was detained in a crackdown that included the closure of universities and offices of her party.
Nobel peace laureate Ms Suu Kyi and other opposition leaders, who had been touring northern Burma, were detained on Friday after four people were killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of her National League for Democracy (NLD).
"Government authorities brought her back to the capital today from the north, where she was visiting supporters," a source close to the government said.
The United Nations had earlier expressed concern about the whereabouts of Ms Suu Kyi, and UN Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan said in a statement on Saturday he was "following, and with concern, the situation in Burma".
The ruling military, which described Ms Suu Kyi's detention as "protective custody", closed the party headquarters in Rangoon, and a party official said its offices had been closed elsewhere in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma.
An education ministry source said the government had also closed universities and colleges "indefinitely". Universities have been closed and reopened several times since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, which began with student riots. Most universities were relocated outside major cities in the late 1990s.
Ms Suu Kyi, a pro-democracy icon who was given the freedom of the city of Dublin in 2000, had been on a month-long tour visiting supporters and party offices in the north of the country.
Other top NLD party members have been confined to their homes and their phone lines have been out of order since Friday.
Burma has been ruled by the military in various guises for the last four decades.
Foreign diplomats contacted yesterday said they feared the detentions could deal a blow to stalled talks between the ruling generals and the opposition on Burma's political future. UN special envoy Mr Razali Ismail is due to travel to Burma on Friday.
Ms Suu Kyi's party won 1990 elections by a landslide but she was denied power by the military and spent much of the last decade under house arrest. After intense international pressure, the junta released her in May 2002, after 19 months under house arrest.
Officials of Ms Suu Kyi's party, which has been pushing for a transition to democracy in the southeast Asian nation, said contact with her and senior aides had been cut off since Friday.
One NLD official said authorities had shut down party offices in the country's second-biggest city, Mandalay, as well as in Mawlamyaing in the south and Pathein in the west. "As far as we have heard, our offices ... have been closed and we think some offices in other home states have been closed," said the official.
Burmese officials denied media reports that Ms Suu Kyi's vehicle had been fired on by an unidentified gunman on Friday night.
Talks between the junta and the opposition began in late 2000 after Ms Suu Kyi was put under house arrest. They stalled in the early stages and the government has not responded to Ms Suu Kyi's calls for substantive dialogue on political change.
More than 1,000 of her party members are in Burma jails, where many of them have languished for years.