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YANGON — Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi met leaders of her opposition party for the first time in more than three years, telling them Friday that she believes Myanmar's military rulers intend to work toward democracy after decades of repression.
The ruling State Peace and Development Council allowed Suu Kyi to leave the home where she has been under house arrest for years and meet for an hour with three executives from her party, along with the government "minister for relations" who serves as a liaison officer to her.
Looking "fit, well and energetic," Suu Kyi, 62, told her colleagues that she is "very optimistic" about the prospects of dialogue with the junta, which cracked down on her National League for Democracy party after it won elections in 1990, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the party.
"She believes that the ruling SPDC has the will to achieve national reconciliation," said Nyan Win, who attended the meeting at a government guest house.
The junta, which came under renewed international pressure after it crushed pro-democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in September, allowed Suu Kyi to meet with her party's officials after the latest in a series of trips by U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari.
Outside observers said that they were doubtful that the meeting was a real sign of change.
"My reaction is extreme skepticism that this will lead to real dialogue between her and the (junta), or genuine political change," said Donald M. Seekins of Japan's Meio University in Japan. "The (government) likes to move Suu Kyi and the NLD around like pieces on a chessboard, to satisfy the international community."
Suu Kyi suggested that the junta could make a conciliatory gesture by releasing political prisoners but appeared to concede that she herself will remain detained for the immediate future, telling her colleagues that she will ask the government for two liaison officers of her choice to communicate with her party's officials on her behalf.
Suu Kyi said she will also ask the "minister for relations," Aung Kyi, to arrange for her to see the other party leaders whenever necessary.
"She is full of ideas," Nyan Win said.
The junta released no public statements about the meeting, and the public and press were kept well away.
The roots of Myanmar's crisis are in the military's refusal to hand over power after Suu Kyi's party won the 1990 general election. Instead, the military stepped up a campaign of arrest and harassment of the party members, and eventually closed most of its offices.
Suu Kyi has been in government detention for 12 of the past 18 years, and continuously since May 2003.
The government says 10 people were killed in the Sept. 26-27 crackdown on pro-democracy protests, though diplomats and dissidents say the death toll was much higher. Thousands were arrested, with the events triggering intense global condemnation.
The junta now says it is following a seven-step "road map" to democracy that is supposed to culminate in free elections, though it has not set a time line for the process.
Gambari met Suu Kyi for an hour Thursday just before leaving Myanmar, and the Nobel laureate signaled her willingness to follow his reconciliation initiative.
"In the interest of the nation, I stand ready to cooperate with the government in order to make this process of dialogue a success," Suu Kyi said in a statement that Gambari read to reporters in Singapore.
Her statement also prodded the junta to move more quickly in dealing with her.
She said she hoped that preliminary consultations with Aung Kyi could be concluded soon "so that a meaningful and time-bound dialogue with the SPDC leadership can start as early as possible."
A U.N.-initiated dialogues in 2002-2003 failed to make any headway.
And unless Suu Kyi makes some concessions to the government, further progress is unlikely this time, said Robert Taylor, a London-based Myanmar scholar.
"I doubt if they will move unless she makes the first significant step," he said in an e-mail interview.
Along with the political pressure, the regime, which is notoriously thin-skinned about foreign criticism, faces fresh scrutiny about its human rights record.
The U.N.'s special investigator for human rights in Myanmar, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, has been invited for a five-day visit starting Sunday.
Ahead of his visit, the London-based human rights group Amnesty International issued a call for the junta to cooperate with his mission.
"Widespread arbitrary detentions, hostage taking, beatings and torture in custody and enforced disappearances clearly disprove any claims from the Myanmar government of returning normality," Catherine Baber, Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific program director, said in a press release.
