American being held by Burmese government
HONG KONG - An American man has been arrested for swimming across a lake to sneak into the home of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, a US diplomat said yesterday from Rangoon.
Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader who has been under house arrest for 13 of the past 19 years, is rarely allowed visitors by Burma's ruling military junta. The street to her lakeside home in the University section of Rangoon, the commercial capital, is blocked by police barricades and checkpoints.
The state-run Myanma Ahlin newspaper said the man reportedly confessed to swimming across Inya Lake on Sunday evening. He was arrested early Wednesday as he was swimming back.
It was not known if the man had gotten into Aung San Suu Kyi's house or if he had contacted her.
The newspaper identified the man as John William Yeattaw and said the authorities had confiscated an American passport, a black backpack, a pair of pliers, a camera and two $100 bills.
There were no immediately verifiable details about the man's identity or his purpose, but US diplomat Richard Mei confirmed that the man had been arrested and that American consular officials were trying to see him.
Foreign visitors, even senior diplomats, are not given permission to visit Aung San Suu Kyi at home. In February, she was allowed to leave her residence to meet briefly with Ibrahim Gambari, the UN special envoy to Burma, at a government guest house.
Her current term of house arrest began in May 2003 after her motorcade, traveling near the northern town of Depayin, was attacked by a mob - with dozens of reported fatalities - in what some analysts believe was an assassination attempt. Her detention is due to end later this month, although annual extensions have become routine.
