Pubdate: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Copyright: 2000 San Jose Mercury News Contact: 750 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95190 Fax: (408) 271-3792 Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Author: Blaine Harden, New York Times BURMA MAY FREE OPPOSITION LEADER Nobel Prize Winner Held At Home For Most Of Past Decade Burma's military dictatorship signaled Monday that it might soon release Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the country's democratic opposition and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, who has been under house arrest since September. The junta that rules Burma, also known as Myanmar, has been bombarded in recent weeks by criticism from the United Nations, human rights groups and Thailand. It has been accused of torturing political opponents, using forced labor and condoning an illegal drug industry that is spreading addiction across Southeast Asia. Report alleges torture Amnesty International will release a report today that charges Burma's government with using torture as an ``institution'' of state repression. The report says torture is used routinely ``as a means of instilling fear in anyone critical of the military government.'' In what may be an attempt to defang these critics, Burmese officials attending a meeting in Vientiane, Laos, told European Union officials that they would allow a four-member European delegation to visit Burma next month. Its members would be free to talk to opposition leaders, including Suu Kyi, who is likely to be released from house arrest before the visit, said Charles Josselin, a French official who attended the meeting. Early this month, the government released six other prominent opposition leaders. They were detained, along with Suu Kyi, when she tried to travel outside Rangoon, the capital, on Sept. 21 to meet with other members of her party. The government has all but banned the party, the National League for Democracy, in recent months, locking up nearly all of its leaders in the capital and around the country. President Clinton last week awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest American civilian honor, to Suu Kyi. Since her party won the national election held in 1990, which the generals in power ignored, she has spent most of the past decade confined to her house in Rangoon, also known as Yangon. The United States has not received any direct information from the European Union on the meeting in Vientiane, said a State Department official. He said the United States would welcome the release of Suu Kyi, but cautioned that ``the proof of the pudding is in the eating.'' At the meeting in Laos, Foreign Minister Win Aung of Burma reportedly did not mention Suu Kyi by name. But he led European Union officials attending a meeting with foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to believe that she and two other opposition leaders would be released soon, Josselin told reporters. ``It's hard to imagine that a lifting of the restrictions would not happen before the visit,'' Josselin said. Burma condemned by U.N. The government of Burma has been singled out in the past month for an exceptionally scathing round of condemnation from the United Nations General Assembly, international trade unions, human rights groups and military leaders in Thailand. The General Assembly last week accused the government of condoning the use of rape, torture, mass arrests, forced labor and summary executions to suppress dissent. The chief of Thailand's armed forces said he planned to use a visit to Burma this week to warn the government that the widespread production of heroin and amphetamines there was a threat to regional stability, as well as a cause of drug addiction in Southeast Asia. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek