U.N. Urged to Push Myanmar to Free Dissident

Nobel Peace Prize winners seeking the release of Burmese dissident and fellow laureate Aung San Suu Kyi called on the United Nations on Friday to suspend Myanmar’s membership in the world organization.

A delegation of five laureates and two people from groups that have won the prize urged Myanmar’s military rulers to immediately free the democracy campaigner, who has been under house arrest since 1989.

They also called on the ruling junta to honor the results of a 1990 national election, which Suu Kyi’s party won by a landslide.

“We recommend that the United Nations move to suspend the membership of the government of Myanmar (Burma) until such time as compliance to objectives stated above are achieved,” said a statement read at a news conference by former Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez, the 1987 Peace laureate.

Myanmar’s State Law and Order Restoration Council--the latest name for a military oligarchy that has ruled for 30 years--took power after violently suppressing a national uprising for democracy in 1988.

Suu Kyi, 47, was an academic living in Britain when mass demonstrations began in Myanmar against military rule. She returned to her homeland to take up the mantle of her father, independence hero Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947 shortly before the end of British colonial rule.

She was awarded the 1991 Peace Prize for her peaceful campaign to unseat the generals.

The laureates’ statement called for an immediate U.N. arms embargo against the Myanmar government and for the international community to work with the United Nations in applying an economic boycott, including trade and investment.