By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's junta extended the housearrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday, a movethat dismayed some of the Western nations who promised millionsof dollars in aid after Cyclone Nargis.
Officials drove to the Nobel laureate's lakeside Yangonhome to read out an extension order in person, said agovernment official, who asked not to be identified.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who just returned toNew York from a weeklong aid mission in Myanmar, expresseddisappointment but refrained from sharp criticism.
"I regret the decision of the government of Myanmar toextend for a second consecutive year the detention and thehouse arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi," Ban said.
"The sooner restrictions on Aung San Suu Kyi and otherpolitical figures are lifted, the sooner Myanmar will be ableto move toward ... restoration of democracy and full respectfor human rights," he said.
He added that his special envoy for Myanmar, IbrahimGambari, would raise the issue of Suu Kyi with the junta.
The 62-year-old Suu Kyi, whose National League forDemocracy party won a 1990 election by a landslide only to bedenied power by the army, has now spent nearly 13 of the last18 years under some form of arrest.
Her latest period of detention started on May 30, 2003,"for her own protection" after clashes between her supportersand pro-junta thugs in the northern town of Depayin. The lastof a series of yearlong extensions expired on Tuesday.
Although few expected Suu Kyi to be released, the extensionis a timely reminder of the ruling military's refusal to makeany concessions on the domestic political front despite itsgrudging acceptance of foreign help after the May 2 cyclone.
Hours before the extension, police arrested 20 of herparty's members who were trying to march to Suu Kyi's home.
PRAISE FOR UNITED NATIONS
State-controlled media on Tuesday praised the UnitedNations for the help it has given to the 2.4 million peopleleft destitute in the Irrawaddy delta, suggesting some thawingin the junta's frosty relationship with the outside world.
The English-language New Light of Myanmar, the generals'main mouthpiece, said U.N. agencies took prompt action toprovide relief supplies after the cyclone, which left 134,000people dead or missing.
U.S. President George W. Bush said he was "deeply troubled"by the extension of Suu Kyi's house arrest and called forpolitical prisoners to be freed, but State Department spokesmanSean McCormack said it would not affect U.S. cyclone aid.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Britain'simmediate focus was also on post-cyclone relief, but thatrestoration of democracy was vital in the long term.
Three weeks after the cyclone's 120 mph (190 kph) winds andsea surge devastated the delta, the United Nations says fewerthan one in three of those most in need have received any aid.
Thousands of beggars line the roads, and droves of childrenshout "Just throw something!" at passing vehicles.
Witnesses say many villages have received no outside help,and the waterways of the former Burma's "rice bowl" remainlittered with bloated and rotting animal carcasses and corpses.
Much of the blame for the aid delay rests with the junta,which has been reluctant to admit a large-scale internationalrelief effort for fear that would loosen the grip on power thearmy has held since a 1962 coup.
SMALL SIGNS
However, top diplomats who helped coordinate a donorconference in Yangon on Sunday said there were small signs ofthe generals overcoming their pride and paranoia.
"I can sense that there is a sense of urgency," SurinPitsuwan, Secretary-General of the Association of SoutheastAsian Nations, said in the Thai capital on Tuesday.
Washington told the Yangon conference it was ready to raiseits offer of $20.5 million (10.4 million pounds) in aid if thejunta opened up, but added it was dismayed that the generalshad gone ahead with a constitutional referendum in the middleof the disaster.
The result -- 92.5 percent in favor on a turnout of 98.1percent in a poll lacking neutral monitoring -- is unlikely toenhance the credibility of the generals' seven-step "road mapto democracy," meant to culminate in elections in 2010.
After junta supremo Than Shwe promised Ban that all aidworkers would get full access to the delta, foreign expertshave headed out of Yangon to test whether things have changed.
U.N. humanitarian affairs chief John Holmes said in NewYork that there had been some improvement regarding access.
Myanmar embassies are also slowly granting more visas toaid workers, although the U.N.'s World Food Program, which isspearheading much of the emergency relief push, says it iscoming up against reams of red tape at every turn.
"Every step has required agreement with the government,clearance from the government, approval by the government ofvirtually all of our actions," said WFP spokesman Paul Risley.
(Additional reporting by Nopporn Wong-Anan and Ed Davies inBANGKOK; Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
