U.S. lawmakers push Suu Kyi honors

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill on Tuesday that would give the Congressional Gold Medal, America's top civilian honor, to Myanmar democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi.

As that bill awaited the necessary U.S. Senate approval, a bipartisan group of 48 Senators wrote President George W. Bush urging him to push for an international arms embargo against the ruling military junta in Myanmar, formerly called Burma.

Both moves follow Myanmar's violent suppression of Buddhist monk-led pro-democracy protests in September, a crackdown in which the United Nations has put the death toll at 31.

Rep. Tom Lantos, whose bill banning the import of gems from Myanmar into the United States passed the House last week, said giving Suu Kyi the medal would send a strong signal to the junta, which he called "one of the worst abusers of human rights in the world today."

"From imprisoning the democratically elected leader of their own country to recruiting child soldiers and using rape as a weapon of war, these criminals will stop at nothing to retain their stranglehold on power," said Lantos, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won elections in 1990, but the army refused to hand over power and has detained the Nobel Peace laureate for most of the time since then.

The letter to Bush promoting an arms embargo was spearheaded by Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

"No responsible nation should provide weapons to a regime as reprehensible as the one found in Burma," read the letter, which urged the United States to push for an arms embargo against Myanmar at the U.N. Security Council.

Analysts said any U.N. push on arms could meet resistance from China, Myanmar's ally and chief arms supplier and a veto-wielding permanent member of the security council.

(Reporting by Paul Eckert; editing by Todd Eastham)