Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi began a sixth year under detention Wednesday as foreign donors said aid would continue to flow into the military-ruled nation to save cyclone victims, AP reported.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed regret over Suu Kyi's continued arrest while praising "a new spirit of cooperation" between the junta and the international community in the aid effort.
In Washington, President George W. Bush said Tuesday he was "deeply troubled" by the extension of Suu Kyi's house arrest but stressed that the U.S. would continue to provide aid to the victims.
Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate who has been detained for more than 12 of the past 18 years, had her detention extended by one year Tuesday, a government official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
She has long been the symbol of the regime's heavy-handed intolerance of opposition and the focus of a worldwide campaign lobbying for her release.
"The United States calls upon the regime to release all political prisoners in Burma and begin a genuine dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi, the National League for Democracy, and other democratic and ethnic minority groups on a transition to democracy," Bush said in a statement. Myanmar is also known as Burma.
The junta's extension of Suu Kyi's detention came as Myanmar fended off worldwide criticism for its inadequate aid effort for the survivors of the May 2-3 Cyclone Nargis.
The storm left an estimated 2.4 million people in desperate need of food, shelter and medical care, according to the U.N., and the government says it killed 78,000 people and left 56,000 missing.
Only after intense international pressure and a personal appeal by Ban, who visited Myanmar last week to meet with junta chief Senior Gen. Than Shwe, did the government relent and say it would allow foreign relief workers to travel to the Irrawaddy Delta, the area hardest hit by the cyclone.
"The Myanmar government appears to be moving toward the right direction, to implement these accords," Ban told reporters in New York Tuesday. "Some international aid workers and NGOs have already gone into the regions of the Irrawaddy Delta, without any problem."
"I hope - and I believe - that this marks a new spirit of cooperation between Myanmar and the international community as a whole."
Myanmar's leaders are leery of foreign aid workers and international agencies because they fear an influx of outsiders could undermine their control. The junta is also hesitant to have its people see aid coming directly from countries such as the United States, which it has long treated as a hostile power seeking to invade or colonize.
But the ruling generals have long regarded Suu Kyi, daughter of the country's martyred independence leader Gen. Aung San, as the biggest threat to their power.
Her National League for Democracy party is the country's largest legal opposition group, and it retains the loyalty of millions of citizens despite two decades of constant repression.
Suu Kyi's latest period of detention started in May 2003 after a motorcade in which she was traveling was attacked by a pro-government mob. An unknown number of her followers, perhaps several dozen, were killed in the attack, which was regarded by some diplomats and specialists following Myanmar affairs as a botched assassination attempt.
Only once has she appeared publicly in the past five years - she was allowed to stand at the open gate of her compound during last September's pro-democracy protests in Yangon. Only a few hundred demonstrators who were allowed to march down her street got a glimpse of her.
U.N. efforts to push the government to some sort of dialogue in the wake of the demonstrations, which were violently suppressed by the military, have failed to make progress.
After spending much of her life abroad, including studying in Britain, Suu Kyi returned to Myanmar in 1988, and proved to be a charismatic figure capable of galvanizing vast prodemocracy protests that were bloodily smashed by the military.
She co-founded the National League for Democracy party, and was put under house arrest in 1989 as a security risk, not to be released until 1995. She was awarded her Nobel prize in absentia in 1991 for her nonviolent attempts at promoting democracy.