Japan Freezes Aid to Burma to Force Junta to Release Suu Kyi

Japan and Britain yesterday intensified the global diplomatic pressure on Burma to free the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi as the military junta dismissed British accusations that she is being held in the nation's most notorious prison.

Japan, the largest donor to the repressed nation, announced it was freezing all financial aid to Burma, while Tony Blair said the British government had made "the strongest possible representations" on behalf of Ms Suu Kyi.

Ms Suu Kyi was detained on May 30 along with more than a dozen of her National League for Democracy supporters after her motorcade was attacked by pro-government thugs. At least four people were killed in the incident.

Japan decided to cut off aid after the deputy foreign minister, Tetsuro Yano, returned from the Burmese capital, Rangoon, on Monday, having failed to secure the release of the leader whose party won the last general election in Burma, in 1990, but who has never been allowed to govern.

"First of all, we want the early release of Suu Kyi. Under the current circumstances we will not extend economic assistance," a Japanese official said.

Data from Japan's foreign ministry say the country gave Burma 8.37bn yen (£42m) in grants in the five years to March 2003, technological assistance worth £34m in the four years to March 2002 and debt relief worth £5.7m in the past five years.

The Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien has said Ms Suu Kyi is being held in the infamous Insein prison in Rangoon - although the junta denies that she is being held there.

The only outsider to have seen her since her detention, the UN special envoy Razali Ismail, said yesterday in Tokyo that she is being held in "deplorable" conditions.

"She's uncowed and feisty," he said. "She was outraged that this had happened to her."

Mr Blair used more aggressive language about the Burmese junta than he has in years. "We've made the strongest possible representations, not merely in respect of the release of the leader of the opposition but also on the restoration of proper human and democratic rights," he said.