Global Peace Centre

THE Burmese junta says it is preparing for the release of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi after international condemnation of last weekend's election and fears that a delay could spark demonstrations.

"We haven't got any instructions from superiors for her release yet," a government official told AFP yesterday. "But we are preparing security plans for 13 November."

Trenchant international criticism of Burma's first general elections in 20 years is believed to have helped Ms Suu Kyi's chances of freedom. Analysts predicted the regime would use her release to deflect attention from claims of vote fraud and ballot box stuffing.

Her lawyers said she was due to be released on Saturday, and many believe that voter frustration could explode into civil unrest if she remains locked up.

Win Min, an exiled Burmese academic who in 1988 helped lead the student revolt in Burma, told The Australian the regime would probably permit the democracy champion to speak to the media.

Now 65, Ms Suu Kyi has spent 15 of the past 21 years under house arrest, most recently because an uninvited US man swam across Inya lake to visit her last year. "They can use Suu Kyi to neutralise criticism," Mr Win Min said. "They will have to allow her to talk, and I think she will be ready to talk. She spoke to the press when she was released in 1995, and in 2002. She will do that this time."

Ms Suu Kyi would probably refrain from discussing her future plans, he added, but she was likely to comment on the elections. The deeply unpopular Union Solidarity and Development Party, a proxy regime party top-heavy with former generals, has unofficially claimed victory with more than 80 per cent of the votes.

Its rivals have conceded defeat, but party leaders publicly complained about the "so-called advance votes" and "fraud".

Several have formally complained to the election commission, and the military-aligned National Unity Party is preparing legal action. Ms Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy convincingly won the 1990 election, but the result was annulled by the ruling military regime.

More recently the NLD was formally dissolved and it boycotted the elections. Nyan Win, NLD spokesman and one of Ms Suu Kyi's lawyers, said the party had already listed members who would speak to her after her release. "We will draw up a plan for the future after she meets with these people," he was quoted as saying, adding the NLD had not been told when she would be released.

A breakaway NLD offshoot, the National Democratic Front, was trounced in last weekend's polls after late ballot box stuffing whittled away early wins. The victorious USDP was always in a commanding position, fielding candidates in almost all 1159 districts, while the NDF, although it was the largest opposition party, could stand only 164 candidates.

Meanwhile, thousands of Burmese refugees who fled over the border into Thailand to escape battles that erupted this week between the Burmese military and rebel fighters have begun to return to the town of Myawaddy and surrounds.