YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has accepted food rations for the first time in a month, an official said Tuesday, after her doctor found her so weak that he placed her on a drip.
he doctor administered intravenous fluids Sunday to the 63-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been confined to her lakeside Yangon home for most of the last 19 years, the official said.
"She accepted her food supplies Monday evening, after she was given a drip by her doctor, who found that she was too weak on Sunday," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Her lawyer Kyi Win on Monday described her as "malnourished" after she had refused to accept her daily rations since August 16.
Her National League for Democracy (NLD) party released a statement Tuesday saying that she was not staging a hunger strike, but was eating "thriftily" from the small supplies stored in her home.
However, the NLD said that her health was weakening because she had given most of the stored food to her ailing housekeeper.
"Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was eating thriftily because she gave her food to her housekeeper, Daw Khin Khin Win, who is not in good health," the statement said, using an honorific before her name. "Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's health is weakening."
Khin Khin Win and her daughter stay voluntarily in the home to care for the woman known here simply as "The Lady." The maid's daughter was hospitalised on Friday with kidney problems.
Concerns for Aung San Suu Kyi's health have mounted over the last month.
The lawyer Kyi Win has also denied that she was on a hunger strike, but said she had stopped accepting food deliveries to press for greater human rights.
Her action came amid a rare series of meetings with Kyi Win to discuss filing a formal legal appeal against detention.
Kyi Win has also been in talks with military officials on loosening the terms of her confinement, by allowing her to receive magazines and letters from her family, or allowing her maids to move freely in and out of her home.
The Myanmar official said that Aung San Suu Kyi had been allowed to receive copies of news magazines such as Time and Newsweek, but so far she had not been allowed to receive any messages from her family.
She has had no communication from her two sons since 2003, according to NLD.
Both the government official and NLD spokesman Nyan Win said that she would likely meet with the junta's liaison officer later this week, if her strength improves.
"We hope there will be some progress and good results after the meeting," Nyan Win said.
"We are also expecting to develop to higher-level talks between Daw Suu and senior leadership from this dialogue," he added.
Aung San Suu Kyi has refused to meet with anyone other than her lawyer and her doctor since early August, declining to hold talks with visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari and with the liaison officer, Labour Minister Aung Kyi.
Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but the junta never allowed it to take office. The military has ruled Myanmar since 1962.
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