Burma frees Suu Kyi doctor
Burma’s military rulers have released the personal doctor of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who goes on trial tomorrow for allegedly violating terms of her house arrest.
Authorities accuse Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, of harbouring an American man who swam secretly across a lake to her house earlier in the month.
Her personal physician, Tin Myo Win, was taken from his home by police on May 7, a day after American John William Yettaw was arrested near Suu Kyi’s lakeside residence, where she has been detained for more than 13 of the last 19 years.
Today a family member said the doctor had come home.
“He is fine,” said the family member.
Suu Kyi, 63, was charged on Thursday with violating her house arrest by sheltering Yettaw, reportedly a Vietnam War-era veteran, who will also be tried along with two female assistants who have been with Suu Kyi since 2003.
It is not known why Tin Myo Win was arrested. A spokesman for Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy earlier said the doctor’s detention may have been related to the American swimmer, who has been labelled a “fool” by the pro-democracy movement.
Suu Kyi had been scheduled to be freed May 27 after six consecutive years of house arrest but now faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Her latest arrest has sparked a storm of international appeals to Burma’s government to free her and to restore democracy in the country, which has been under military rule since 1962.
Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said today that his government was “deeply troubled and outraged” over “trumped up charges” against Suu Kyi.
“We urge the government to resolve the matter speedily and to release Aung San Suu Kyi immediately and unconditionally,” he said.
Normally, members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes Burma, refrain from criticising one another.
Suu Kyi’s lawyer, Kyi Win, was allowed to meet privately with her yesterday at Insein prison, where the four are being held.
“Suu recounted the events from the time that fellow (Yettaw) came into the house and how she had asked him to leave,” Kyi Win said today.
“After listening to the sequence of events, it is very clear that there is no breach of conditions of her restrictions,” Kyi Win said.
Kyi Win will be one of several lawyers defending Suu Kyi.
Exactly why Yettaw, of Falcon, Missouri, swam across the lake to see Suu Kyi remains unclear. After leaving, he was fished out of the lake about 1.2 miles from her home and taken into custody.
His wife, Betty Yettaw, described her husband as eccentric but peace-loving and “not political at all”.
According to his ex-wife Yvonne Yettaw, he said he went to Asia to work on a psychology paper about forgiveness.
She described him as a “charmer,” but said he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and a head wound during his military service as a “very young” man.
While Yettaw was in Thailand, “Burma caught his attention,” she said. “There really is not politics behind this. He does not have a political agenda and meant her absolutely no harm.”
His former wife said Yettaw belongs to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons, adding that it was unlikely he was in Southeast Asia to proselytise for the church or convert the Nobel laureate.
But a police report on the case against Suu Kyi said that on another secret visit to Suu Kyi last November, he left a Book of Mormon, the religion’s sacred text, in her compound “with intention for her to read (it)”.
The report, made available by the Washington-based activist group US Campaign for Burma, said that on Yettaw’s latest visit, Suu Kyi allowed him to stay at her residence until the night of May 5, speaking with him and providing him with food and drinks.
