West dismayed over Suu Kyi detention

By Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's military has started to bury cyclone victims in communal graves, villagers said on Wednesday, as Western nations pledged to keep aid flowing despite anger at its detention of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The former Burma has been promised millions of dollars in Western help since Cyclone Nargis, but this cut no ice with the junta regarding the Nobel laureate, who has been under house arrest or in prison for nearly 13 of the last 18 years.

Officials drove to Suu Kyi's lakeside Yangon home on Tuesday to read out an extension order in person, but it was unclear whether the extension was for six months or a year.

"It is more likely one year," said a senior police source close to officials in charge of the 62-year-old's detention.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned to New York from an aid mission in Myanmar, expressed disappointment but refrained from sharp criticism in light of the disaster, which left 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.

"The sooner restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi and other political figures are lifted, the sooner Myanmar will be able to move toward ... restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights," he said.

Western nations were more forthright in their criticism of Suu Kyi's ongoing detention.

U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled" by the extension and called for the more than 1,000 political prisoners in Myanmar to be freed. However, the State Department said it would not affect U.S. cyclone aid.

France demanded Suu Kyi's immediate release.

"France calls on the Burmese authorities to free without delay Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, the leaders of the opposition and political prisoners, notably those who have been arrested in recent days," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani told reporters.

Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) won a 1990 poll by a landslide only to be denied power by the military, which has ruled the impoverished country for 46 years.

MASS BURIALS

Few had expected Suu Kyi to be released, but the extension was a reminder of the junta's refusal to make any concessions on the domestic political front despite its grudging acceptance of foreign help after the May 2 cyclone.

Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help, and the waterways of the former Burma's "rice bowl" remain littered with bloated and rotting animal carcasses and corpses.

There has been no official word on plans to dispose of bodies, but villagers said soldiers brought about a dozen corpses to two sites for burial in Khaw Mhu, 40 km southwest of Yangon.