BURMA: Britain and Japan heaped pressure on Burma yesterday to free pro-democracy leader Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, while UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, was said to be growing "increasingly alarmed" about the Nobel laureate.
A UN envoy, who saw Ms Suu Kyi on June 10th, said she was being held in "deplorable" conditions but that she was well.
The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, told the House of Commons Britain had made "the strongest possible representations" on behalf of Ms Suu Kyi and urged British companies to halt trade with Burma.
The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, wrote in the Financial Times that an existing asset freeze, embargoes on arms and a suspension of high-level contact might be expanded.
Mr Blair said: "We've made the strongest possible representations, not merely in respect of the release of the leader of the opposition but also on the restoration of proper human and democratic rights.
In relation to British trade, we are making it clear to British companies that we do not believe that this is appropriate in circumstances where this regime continues to suppress the basic human rights of its people," he added.
Mr Straw called Burma's military rulers brutal, corrupt and incompetent and he reiterated Britain's assertion that Ms Suu Kyi, held since May 30th, was being detained in the notorious Insein jail near Yangon.
Ms Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero General Aung San, has been in detention since a clash between her followers and supporters of the government in the north of the country.
Her National League for Democracy won the country's last elections in 1990 by a landslide but has never been allowed to govern, treated instead to imprisonment, harassment and intimidation.
Speaking after UN special envoy, Mr Razali Ismail, met officials in the Japanese capital, a senior government official told reporters that Tokyo had informed Burma that aid would be halted if it refused to release Ms Suu Kyi, who turned 58 this month.
"First of all, we want the early release of Suu Kyi. Under the current circumstances we will not extend economic assistance," the official, told reporters.
"This is Japan's policy and we have said this to the Burmese government," the official said.
The move by one of Burma's biggest aid donors and a country that has been relatively willing to engage with the regime is likely to have even greater weight than strong criticism by the US and Britain.