Thursday, November 18, 2010

Suu Kyi 'ready to fight' for her party

Burma's newly freed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is "ready to fight" for the existence of her political party, which was disbanded ahead of controversial elections, her lawyer said.

Burma's newly-released opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi (C) smiles as she arrives at the National League for Democracy headquarters in Rangoon.

On her third day of freedom after seven years of house arrest, Suu Kyi signed papers at Rangoon's Supreme Court -- the latest step of a lawsuit against Burma's junta on behalf of her National League for Democracy (NLD).

"She is ready to fight for the existence of the NLD. She will continue the legal process," her lawyer and NLD spokesman Nyan Win said. "She went to the Supreme Court to sign an affidavit because she could not do it before."

Suu Kyi was released on Saturday, less than a week after a widely criticised poll that cemented the junta's decades-long grip on power but was dismissed by democracy activists and Western leaders as a charade.

The NLD was dissolved after deciding to boycott the vote in response to rules that seemed designed to bar the dissident from taking part.

Suu Kyi, who co-founded the party, unsuccessfully filed an earlier lawsuit with the Supreme Court aimed at preventing its abolition.

Her lawyers filed the second suit on her behalf in October, aimed at reversing the dissolution, and a court in the capital Naypyidaw is due to decide on Thursday whether to hear the case.

Nyan Win said Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi, who had been locked up for 15 of the past 21 years, would not travel to the capital for the decision.

The NLD was founded in 1988 after a popular uprising against the military junta that left thousands dead. Two years later the party won elections in a landslide but the results were never recognised by the regime.

The decision to boycott the November 7 vote -- Burma's first in 20 years -- deeply split the opposition and some former NLD members left to stand in the poll, prompting accusations of betrayal from some of her closest associates.

On Monday, 65-year-old Suu Kyi called in a BBC interview for a "non-violent revolution" in Burma, as she began the task of rebuilding her weakened party.

The comments followed her first political speech in years on Sunday, in which she appealed for unity to a sea of euphoric supporters.

Source: Bangkok Post

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