UNITED NATIONS, May 24 (UPI) -- A Nobel laureate who has been under house arrest in Myanmar for three years is doing well, said a senior U.N. official who visited her.
It was the first contact opposition leader Daw Aung Suu Kyi has had with an outsider since she was detained three years ago.
"She appeared quite well," Ibrahim Gambari, U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, told reporters Wednesday at U.N. World Headquarters in New York. "She is a very determined leader, and she believes that she has important work to do." Gambari is the first senior U.N. official to be allowed into Myanmar in two years.
In addition to Suu Kyi, Gambari also met with Gen. Than Shwe, chief of the ruling military junta, to deliver a message from U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and to request Myanmar release Suu Kyi, along with other political prisoners. Gambari described the trip, from May 18 to 20, as a fact-finding mission.
Suu Kyi, who has spent much of the last 17 years in and out of house arrest, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Her plight has attracted international attention to the situation in Myanmar, formerly Burma.
Her detention is scheduled to end May 27, but it is unclear if the military junta will honor its own deadline.
On Thursday U.S. President George W. Bush renewed sanctions against Myanmar for another year, saying that Myanmar posed a threat to U.S. national security and the government had failed to make the necessary steps to restore democracy.
