YANGON (AFP) — Myanmar's ruling junta denied Tuesday that detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi had gone on hunger strike, but rumours persisted after she apparently refused to receive food deliveries.
Exiled Myanmar dissidents in India and Thailand reported that the Nobel Peace Prize winner last accepted fresh food supplies on August 15.
"It is just rumours, it is not true," said a Myanmar government official who refused to be named. "We have not got any (political) demands from her."
Aung San Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), said they were unable to confirm or deny the report as they were not allowed to keep in regular touch with their leader, who is under house arrest in Yangon.
"We haven't heard anything about it. So we cannot confirm these rumours as we have no contact with her at all," said NLD spokesman Win Naing.
The rumours were persistent enough to spread to Western diplomatic circles, with one diplomat who refused to be named telling AFP: "We are trying to know more. The only person who has seen her is the doctor."
Aung San Suu Kyi's doctor and lawyer were permitted to visit her on August 17 when she was given a medical checkup, her first since February.
One exiled opposition party based on the Thai-Myanmar border said it had heard Aung San Suu Kyi's weekly food supplies were last accepted on August 15, but were turned away on August 22.
Aung San Suu Kyi has spent most of the past 19 years confined to her lakeside Yangon home.
Her latest detention began more than five years ago, and she has been allowed little contact with the outside world.
She met her lawyer, Kyi Win, twice in August but that was their first meeting since 2004.
Last week the junta said Aung San Suu Kyi refused to meet visiting UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, and state television aired images of his two aides standing in vain outside her compound waiting for a response.
Gambari also failed to meet junta head Than Shwe, and left the country on Saturday with few results.
In a bid to soothe international outrage after a violent crackdown on anti-junta protests last September, the generals appointed a liaison, labour minister Aung Kyi, to negotiate with Aung San Suu Kyi.
But the pair have not met since January, when the opposition leader complained about the slow pace of their talks.
Aung San Suu Kyi is known as "The Lady" throughout Myanmar, where she remains a potent symbol of the struggle to end military rule despite being largely silenced by the ruling generals.
The NLD won national elections in 1990 but the junta, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, never allowed it to assume power.
