On Thursday "Aung San Suu Kyi will spend yet another birthday in custody, denied her liberty and fundamental political and civil rights by Burma's military rulers," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday, marking Myanmar opposition leader's June 19 birthday.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States marked Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's June 19 birthday, noting that her continued imprisonment was a "deplorable situation" that must end.
On Thursday "Aung San Suu Kyi will spend yet another birthday in custody, denied her liberty and fundamental political and civil rights by Burma's military rulers," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday, using Myanmar's former name.
"This deplorable situation must end," she said in a statement.
Myanmar's military regime "not only continues to keep this distinguished Nobel laureate under house arrest, but there are nearly 2,000 other political prisoners currently in custody," Rice said.
Meanwhile, the junta "has backtracked on even the modest steps it had taken -- naming a liaison to meet regularly with Aung San Suu Kyi and allowing her to meet with her colleagues in Burma's National League for Democracy."
"There have been no meetings with either since January, and Aung San Suu Kyi has even been denied regular access to medical care and legal counsel," Rice said.
Instead of risking further unrest "by its unjustified detention of political prisoners and its holding of a rigged referendum in May on a sham constitution," the junta "should release all political prisoners, including Aung San Suu Kyi, and begin a genuine dialogue with her and other democratic and ethnic minority leaders on a transition to democracy," Rice said.
The ruling junta in Myanmar extended Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest by one year on May 27. Her current period in detention began in 2003.
The Nobel peace prize winner, who is the junta's main challenger, was first detained in 1989, and has spent most of the last 18 years as a prisoner at her sprawling lakeside Yangon home, with only brief spells of freedom.
She led her NLD to a landslide victory in 1990 elections, but it was never allowed to take office.
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