Suu Kyi supporters brace for the worst

30 Jul 2009, 3:58 pm   -   Source: AAP
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Fears of a guilty verdict in the trial of Burma's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are proving too much for some of her supporters.

Supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi have stood resolute through two decades of resistance to Burma's junta - but fears of a guilty verdict in the trial of their icon are proving too much for some.

Many female members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) wept at the party's headquarters after a court announced on Tuesday that it would pass judgment on Suu Kyi at the end of the week, party sources and witnesses said.

They said they feared she could be jailed for up to five more years on charges of abetting an American man who swam to her lakeside house - on top of the 14 years out of the last 20 that she has already spent in detention.

"We cried as we really sorry for her in our heart. But we will remember her words that we should 'hope for the best and prepare for the worst'," Aye Aye Mar, a senior NLD party member, told AFP.

"We felt so sad when we heard the verdict will come. Our leader is always thinking for the benefit of the country. Although we know that the truth will come out one day, we can't do anything apart from pray for her release."

Judges at the court in Rangoon's notorious Insein prison, where 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been held since May, closed the trial on Tuesday after lawyers finished delivering final arguments.

Suu Kyi is accused of breaching the terms of her house arrest by allowing US national John Yettaw to stay at her home after he swam in homemade flippers to her crumbling villa.

Verdicts are also expected in the simultaneous trials of two of Suu Kyi's female aides who lived with her at the property, and of Yettaw himself.

In a cruel irony, Yettaw was detained just days before the latest, six-year period of her house arrest was due to expire, giving the ruling generals a ready-made excuse to extend her detention.

Critics have accused the ruling generals of trying to keep the Nobel Peace Prize winner locked up during general elections promised by the regime some time during 2010.

They will be the first polls in Burma since the NLD swept to a landslide victory in 1990, a result which the junta refused to recognise before launching a massive campaign of repression against pro-democracy activists.

With many of its senior members behind bars, in ill health or simply old, the NLD's Suu Kyi has, more than ever, become the figurehead for peaceful resistance to the army's 47-year rule over the impoverished country.

She still inspires a devoted following some 21 years after taking the helm of the party, despite some questions among exiled activists and in the foreign media about her continued relevance, particularly her insistence that western nations should continue damaging sanctions against Burma.

Another Suu Kyi supporter, a 50-year-old housewife who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that she blamed Yettaw for the troubles faced by Suu Kyi.

"The US man is the one who should be blamed for causing this problem," she said.

"We do not understand very well about the law. But we feel pity for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as she is the daughter of our late leader Bogyoke (General) Aung San."

Suu Kyi's father, Aung San, was the country's independence hero. He was assassinated in 1947.

Nyan Win, one of Suu Kyi's defence lawyers and her party's spokesman has said they are "hoping for the best but preparing for the worst" on Friday, when sentencing is also expected.

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