Myanmar Frees Noted Dissident After 6 Years : Asia: Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi released from house arrest. U.S. praises move, says other rights problems remain.

Aung San Suu Kyi, an opposition leader in Myanmar and a symbol worldwide of democracy in chains, was freed Monday by the military authorities in her native land after six years under house arrest.

Typically, rather than go out to enjoy her freedom, the 1991 Nobel Peace laureate chose to have a meeting at her lakeside home in Yangon, the capital of Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. She summoned two recently released political dissidents, Tin Oo and Kyi Maung, to her house, where a crowd of supporters quickly gathered at the gates.

“Suu Kyi is unconditionally released,” Tin Oo announced to cheers from the crowd as he left her home.

The military junta, formally called the State Law and Order Restoration Council, ordered Suu Kyi detained July 20, 1989, for “endangering the state.” She had founded the National League for Democracy as a focus for opposition to the military, which massacred thousands of civilians during demonstrations in 1988. Despite her house arrest, the league went on to win a landslide victory in parliamentary elections in May, 1990, but the military voided the result and silenced the opposition through a campaign of arrests and intimidation.

A military spokesman told reporters in Yangon, formerly known as Rangoon, that Suu Kyi had been released unconditionally and that she was free to come and go as she pleased. He said a military guard would remain at her request, but diplomats later reported that no soldiers were visible at the house.

She will hold a news conference today, officials said.

Governments around the world, from Japan to India, saluted the military government’s decision to release Suu Kyi.

The White House said in a written statement that President Clinton was gratified by her release and hoped she would be able to participate freely in political reconciliation in Myanmar leading to the installation of a democratically elected government. The President also noted that Myanmar has other serious human rights problems to resolve.

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization, said it was pleased with Monday’s announcement but added that it hoped no strings were attached to her release.

“We hope that no conditions are placed on her freedom and that she is allowed to participate fully in her country’s political process,” Amnesty said in a statement. “We also hope that this decision marks the beginning of a new policy to fundamentally improve Myanmar’s human rights record.”

The 50-year-old dissident has spent six years alone in her home, except for occasional visits from her husband, Michael Aris, an Oxford University lecturer in England, and her two sons. Last year, hopes were raised for her release when authorities allowed U.S. Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) to visit at her home. He called her “a hero of the order of Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi” but the government gave no further sign of a change of heart.

In recent years, the Myanmar government has publicly stated that Suu Kyi was free to leave her house as long as she left the country. But she has always rejected the offers.

The release comes two weeks before the annual conference of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations, which includes representatives of Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines. It will soon include Vietnam, as well, and Myanmar has made no secret that it wants to join the club of fast-developing nations.

Many Western nations downgraded relations with Myanmar following the 1988 killings of student protesters and have made Suu Kyi’s release a condition for improving ties.

Myanmar has pursued a form of radical socialism since the early 1960s, which has left the country, once one of Britain’s crown jewels in Asia, an undeveloped pauper.

While foreign investment has increased dramatically, the government has found its efforts to entice Western companies to set up there thwarted by its image abroad as a country that imprisons dissidents and uses slave labor to build big projects. Macy’s, the New York department store chain, became the most recent foreign company to pull out of the country in May when it said that it was halting all clothing production in Myanmar because of continuing reports of human rights violations there.

Last month, the International Committee of the Red Cross announced that it was closing its Yangon office because the authorities had failed to live up to promises to give the organization free access to prisoners in jail.

Long before Suu Kyi was recognized for her own courage, she was highly respected in the country as the daughter of Gen. Aung San, who led the independence movement against British rule before he was assassinated in 1947. She won a scholarship to Oxford, then worked at the United Nations in New York. She married Aris in 1972 and lived in a succession of foreign capitals.

In 1988, she returned home to nurse her dying mother and found herself caught up in the pro-democracy movement. “I could not, as my father’s daughter, remain indifferent to what was going on,” she said at the time. “The national crisis could in fact be called the second struggle for independence.”

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AUNG SAN SUU KYI

Born, June 19, 1945 . . . when she was 2, her father, Gen. Aung San, leader of anti-British independence movement in Myanmar, then called Burma, was assassinated . . . studied in Burma and India. . . earned degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University . . . worked at U.N. headquarters, New York . . . emerged as leading figure in Myanmar pro-democracy movement after 1988 unrest ousted longtime ruler Gen. Ne Win . . . junta put her under house arrest in 1989 . . . won Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 . . . husband teaches at Oxford University, two teen-age sons.