Friday, August 19, 2011

Suu Kyi leaves home for first trip to Burmese capital

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Friday, 19 August 2011 10:06 Mizzima News

Chiang Mai (Mizzima) – Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi left her home in Rangoon on Friday morning to attend a national-level workshop on economic development in Naypyitaw, the political capital, said party sources.

Aung San Suu Kyi on her visit to Pegu. Photo: Mizzima


Under a security arrangement with the government, Suu Kyi was picked up by car at 9 a.m. local time. A commander of the Special Branch Police, Colonel Win Naing Tun, led the government team escorting her. It was not clear if the security staff of the National League for Democracy (NLD) would also accompany her to Naypyitaw.

In her first-ever trip to Naypyitaw and first high-level official function since her release from house detention in November, she may meet President Thein Sein, who was Burma’s prime minister in the previous junta-led government.

Suu Kyi’s official status at the workshop is as an observer, since the government has dissolved the NLD party because it failed to re-register as a political party. Government officials, political party representatives and businessmen will attend the workshop.

Recently, Suu Kyi met twice with Social Welfare and the Labour Minister Aung Kyi in talks that they said were “productive,” and relations between Suu Kyi and the government have taken a positive turn in recent months. For the first time since her release, Suu Kyi recently traveled outside Rangoon, visiting Bagan, the ancient temple complex in central Burma, and Pegu, about 60 km north of Rangoon, to open two libraries named in her honour.

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