A new attempt by Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, to assert her right to freedom of movement by driving out of Rangoon yesterday looks in danger of turning into another tense stand-off with ruling generals.
The leader of the National League for Democracy left her house in Rangoon yesterday morning on her second attempt to visit supporters in the western town of Bassein but security agents halted the vehicle, reportedly close to the spot where last month she spent six days defying their orders to return to the capital.
The trip, her fourth attempt in a month to exercise a legal right to travel, came as Japan called on the junta to open a substantive dialogue with Aung Suu Kyi (53) and described the generals treatment of her as "very deplorable."
The last stand-off ended only when security men seized Aung Suu Kyi, pinioning her in the back of her car, as another ordered her driver out and took the wheel to drive it back to the capital Rangoon.
Although stricken by fever and dehydration after her six-day ordeal, when military agents cut off supplies of food and water and she was reduced to trapping rainwater in an umbrella for drinking, recent visitors say she has made a full recovery. Travelling as on the last trip with an NLD executive board member, Mr Hla Pe (75), and two drivers, Aung Suu Kyi appears better prepared for another long wait. Instead of using the same white sedan as before, she has borrowed a van better suited for a long occupation.
Her action will keep international attention focused on Burma and its ruling generals, who drew fierce criticism abroad for their interference with her last trip. The US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, warned the junta that Washington would hold it directly responsible for her safety.
It comes at a time when Aung Suu Kyi is seeking to push the junta to honour the results of a 1990 election won by the NLD and has set a deadline of August 21st for convening the parliament the junta has never allowed to meet. State-run media condemned the call as "an illegal act" and attacked its authors as "rogues ready to dance to the tunes of the manipulators outside."
Foreign scrutiny may also be sharpened by the junta's announcement yesterday that it no longer took responsibility for her safety. The abrupt reversal in the junta's position followed her demand last week that authorities should remove military intelligence agents posted in the compound of her Rangoon house.
"Since we have withdrawn our official security at her request we are no longer responsible for her personal safety or security," a government statement said.
The NLD has complained that since withdrawing its agents, the junta has increased the number of military checkpoints controlling access to it. Intense surveillance by intelligence agents already ensures that no-one can reach it without being photographed.
The junta is already under international scrutiny after detaining 18 foreign activists - six Americans, an Australian, three Thais, three Malaysians, three Indonesians, two Filipinos - for distributing political leaflets on the 10th anniversary last weekend of the August pro-democracy uprising.
The government has granted consular access to the prisoners but has yet to disclose whether it intends to charge them.