Security tight in Myanmar on Martyr’s Day

YANGON, Myanmar — Myanmar’s military rulers tightened security in downtown Yangon on Sunday as officials gathered to commemorate the death 62 years ago of the father of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Myanmar independence hero Gen. Aung San and other government leaders were assassinated by gunmen during a Cabinet meeting on July 19, 1947, shortly after Britain granted independence to the Southeast Asian colony.

Nobel Peace laureate Suu Kyi marked the anniversary of her father’s death inside Yangon’s notorious Insein prison. The 64-year-old is on trial for allegedly violating the terms of her house arrest by giving shelter to an uninvited American man who swam secretly to her lakeside home in May.

If convicted, she faces up to five years in prison. Her trial resumes Friday.

On Sunday, hundreds of riot police erected barricades secured with barbed wire and blocked streets leading to the Martyr’s Mausoleum. More than two dozens trucks carrying riot police and four prison vans were parked near the monument located near the famed Shwedagon pagoda.

Flags were flown at half staff in the capital as Yangon officials placed flowers at the tomb, and families of slain leaders joined the tightly guarded wreath-laying ceremony.

Aung San Suu Kyi, who usually attended the official ceremony, was absent for the sixth consecutive year, marking the day by donating food to patients at the hospital inside the prison, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for her National League for Democracy party and one of her lawyers.

Martyr’s Day was an important event on Myanmar’s calendar for years, but has been gradually downgraded as Suu Kyi has become more popular, particularly since a 1988 pro-democracy uprising that was crushed by the junta.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has been under military rule since 1962.

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years. Her opposition party won national elections in 1990, but Myanmar’s generals refused to relinquish power.

Her trial has drawn condemnation from the international community and her supporters within Myanmar, who worry the ruling junta has found an excuse to keep her detained through elections planned for next year.