RANGOON (voa) – Burma’s military government has freed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi after 19 months of virtual house arrest.
A government spokesman said Monday all restrictions have been lifted on the movements and activities of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
The 56-year-old pro-democracy leader has been confined to her house with her telephone line cut since September of 2000 after she tried to defy a government ban on travel outside the capital.
Her release had been had been widely expected for days following U.N. brokered negotiations aimed at ending a 12-year old political deadlock. In a statement released earlier in the day, Burma’s military rulers said they would continue to release detainees, but did not mention Aung San Suu Kyi by name.
Freedom for the pro-democracy leader has been among the top demands of the international community, which has isolated Burma and imposed economic sanctions on the country in a bid to force political change.
Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won elections in 1990 by a landslide. But the military government has refused to hand over power, saying that too quick a transition to democracy would split the ethnically diverse country.
Aung San Suu Kyi was originally placed under house arrest in 1989. She was released in 1995, but put under virtual house detention again in September 2000.
