ငါ့လင္ကို နင္အေဖေတာင္ေၾကာက္ရတယ္..ငါလူေတြ ျပန္လႊတ္ေပးစမ္း

Clinton calls on Myanmar to free Suu Kyi, American man
GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Myanmar Tuesday to release Aung San Suu Kyi after the Nobel peace laureate was sentenced to another 18 months of house arrest.

Clinton also demanded that the military junta free John Yettaw, an American who was sentenced to seven years of hard labour for entering the detained democracy icon's home.

"She should not have been tried and she should not have been convicted," Clinton said during a visit to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. "We continue to call for a release from her continuing house arrest."

"We also call for the release of more than 2,000 political prisoners including the American John Yettaw. We are concerned about the harsh sentence imposed on him, especially in light of his medical condition," she said.

A Myanmar court convicted Suu Kyi, 64, at the end of a marathon trial for breaching the terms of her detention by the ruling military junta, following a bizarre incident in which Yettaw swam uninvited to her home.

Yettaw, a 54-year-old US military veteran from Missouri, is diabetic and also suffers from epilepsy.

He was sentenced to seven years of hard labour and imprisonment -- three years for breaching security laws, three years for immigration violations and one year for a municipal charge of illegal swimming.

The case has drawn international outrage amid claims that the junta was concocting the charges to keep Suu Kyi locked up for the elections due in 2010, Myanmar's first since the cancelled vote of 1990.

"The Burmese junta should immediately end its repression of so many in its country and start a dialogue with the opposition and the ethnic groups. Otherwise the elections they have scheduled for next year will have absolutely no legitimacy," Clinton said.