Confrontation between Burma's military junta and Aung San Suu Kyi gathered momentum yesterday as the democracy leader accused the generals of kidnapping her to stop her campaigning for freedom of movement.
Her show of defiance, boosted by support from western governments, came a day after security men seized her in the car she had occupied for six days after they had stopped her travelling to the provinces and forced her to drive back to Rangoon.
"I was kidnapped," a member of her National League for Democracy quoted Aung Suu Kyi as saying. "They even stole my car."
The junta's action drew a stinging rebuke, the second this week, from the US Secretary of State, Ms Madeleine Albright, as "an unacceptable violation of her human rights".
In London the British Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, also described interference with Aung Suu Kyi's movements as unacceptable. Burma's ambassador to Britain has been summoned to the Foreign Office.
Security agents stopped Aung Suu Kyi 64 km from the capital last Friday, placing sandbags, barbed wire and soldiers in front of her car to stop her visiting supporters outside the capital.
She refused to answer their questions or meet authorities about her freedom to travel. Military agents blocked two earlier attempts to travel outside Rangoon this month.
Her protest proved a humiliating diplomatic and public relations setback for the junta, becoming one of the major talking points at a conference of Asia-Pacific foreign ministers in the Philippines.
The end of the protest came yesterday evening when agents seized her as she lay on the back seat of the vehicle, nursing a temperature of 104. They evicted two colleagues from the front seats and drove the car back to Rangoon. On her return she tried to call a press conference but the authorities blocked it.
The junta, taking the part of the Good Samaritan, claimed it acted on the advice of her doctor and some followers in the party. "She may not like what we did to her now but she will be grateful for this in the future," a spokesman suggested. The government had nothing to gain, "but we do not wish to see anybody's life go wasted for no good reason."
Diplomats in Rangoon had reported mid-week that Aung Suu Kyi's food supply was running out and her health was suffering. The 53-year-old Nobel peace laureate did not attend a press conference held by the NLD yesterday because "she is not well enough", the party's vice-president, Mr Tin Oo, said. "She is still very, very weak."
Aung Suu Kyi's determination to assert her freedom of movement is only one of the challenges worrying the junta as Burma approaches the 10th anniversary of the pro-democracy uprising that was bloodily suppressed.
The regime is wary of possible student unrest after setting an August date for exams that should have taken place at the end of the 1996-1997 academic year, only to be stalled by campus agitation. Aung Suu Kyi has also set an August deadline for convening the parliament elected in 1990.