Suu Kyi criticises India's ties with Myanmar junta

(AFP) – 1 day ago

NEW DELHI — Myanmar's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi criticised India in a newspaper interview on Wednesday for doing business with the military dictators who held her under house arrest until 11 days ago.

Suu Kyi, who lived in India in the 1980s, was released in Yangon on November 13 after spending more than seven consecutive years in detention.

India was once a staunch supporter of her cause, but began engaging with Myanmar's junta in the mid-1990s over security and energy issues.

The government in New Delhi has been eyeing oil and gas fields in Myanmar, and is also eager to counter China's growing influence in south-east Asia.

"I am saddened with India. I would like to have thought that India would be standing behind us. That it would have followed in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi and (India's first prime minister) Jawaharlal Nehru," Suu Kyi told the Indian Express.

"I do not oppose relations with the Generals but I hope that the Indian government would talk to us as well," she said.

India, which shares a border with Myanmar, welcomed the country's reclusive military leader Than Shwe for a state visit in July.

The invitation outraged human rights groups who said India was reneging on its democratic principles in order to improve trade links and to compete with China.
US President Barack Obama, during his trip to India earlier this month, criticised India for failing to condemn human rights abuses in Myanmar.

"When peaceful democratic movements are suppressed, as they have been in Burma (Myanmar), then the democracies of the world cannot remain silent," Obama told the Indian parliament.

Suu Kyi also told the newspaper that she had applied for an Internet connection since her release and hoped to communicate with her supporters through social networking websites Facebook and Twitter.

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