(AFP)
YANGON — Myanmar's leading opposition party marked its 21st anniversary Sunday by calling on the country's military regime to free its detained leader, Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
Around 250 party members, diplomats and former political prisoners attended a gathering at the National League for Democracy's headquarters in Yangon, amid tight security, to celebrate the party's formation in 1988.
"On our anniversary day I want to say that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi should be allowed to take part freely in politics. She herself is a politician and our party is acknowledged by the government," NLD spokesman Nyan Win told AFP.
The party also called for the release of other detained political prisoners and the reopening of its regional offices around the country.
The NLD won a landslide in 1990 elections but the junta refused to recognise the victory, and pro-democracy icon Suu Kyi has spent 14 of the past 20 years under house arrest or in jail.
The ruling generals extended her house arrest by 18 months in August after convicting her of breaching the terms of her detention, after an American man swam uninvited to her house.
The sentence keeps her out of the way for elections promised by the junta in 2010. The NLD has not yet said if it will take part in the polls, which critics say are a sham to legitimise the generals' grip on power.
But Suu Kyi has written to military regime leader Than Shwe with suggestions about how to get Western sanctions against the country lifted, after years of espousing punitive measures against the junta, it emerged Saturday.
The move came just days after the United States unveiled a major policy shift that would see Washington engaging with the ruling generals in a bid to push for democratic reform in Myanmar.
Nyan Win said she wrote the letter "expecting to start a dialogue".
"There can be no stability for the economic and social sectors without political stability. Dialogue is a sign of positive development," the NLD's anniversary statement said.
According to party sources, Suu Kyi has asked in her letter for meetings with top Western diplomats in Myanmar to discuss the sanctions imposed by their countries.
Source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g95oazmw0c2v5NkMP68AKvGdGwGg
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