YANGON (AFP): At the leafy villa where Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi had spent years locked up, there were no signs on Friday it would become a renewed site of political pilgrimage as it did during her previous house arrest.
While her shift to private detention appeared to be a rare concession by the authorities that have detained the deposed leader since a 2021 coup, supporters fear that any contact with the public would be severely restricted.
The Yangon lakeside mansion where Suu Kyi had been siloed under military detention, including when she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for pro-democracy activism, was under its usual security lockdown.
Barbed-wire traffic barricades remained in place next to a police post -- but with no significant buildup that would suggest the villa would host her after the transfer to house arrest was announced Thursday.
"I welcome her release from prison to house arrest. I want her to be free, and I want our country to thrive and prosper," said a 65-year-old Yangon housewife, speaking anonymously for security reasons.
"I also want to see concrete evidence that aunty is alive and well, both for the people of our country and the world," she added, using an affectionate term for Suu Kyi.
Suu Kyi has been detained since the 2021 coup ousted her administration, triggering a ruinous civil war and a crackdown on dissent.
In earlier years of activism she defied house arrest in Yangon to rally supporters with speeches over the boundary wall, building momentum for a decade-long experiment with democracy she was to lead.
But there were no signals on Friday that her family mansion would again draw crowds of followers, with only a single gardener there watering the roadside lawn out front.
A member of Suu Kyi's dissolved National League for Democracy party said she would likely be kept in the capital Naypyidaw, a sprawling garrison city of high walls and secretive compounds.
A security source, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to share information, said the 80-year-old would stay at a property inside a military perimeter.
- 'Step-by-step' -
Min Aung Hlaing -- who ousted Suu Kyi as military chief and oversaw prosecution on charges rights groups deride as bogus -- made a personal order Suu Kyi serve her remaining term at a "designated residence".
It did not say where that will be, nor how much remains of her sentence.
Last month Min Aung Hlaing took over as civilian president after an election excluding Suu Kyi's party, claiming the country had entered a new chapter and rolling back some post-coup crackdown measures.
Pro-democracy rebel Bo Thanmani, who disrobed from the monkhood to fight military rule in the northern region of Sagaing, called Suu Kyi's house arrest "a good move".
"We don't want to thank the regime, this was an unfair arrest," he said.
But this could be the start of a "step-by-step" reconciliation process between sides estranged by the coup, he added.
Suu Kyi's family, activists and some analysts, however, dismiss the election and Min Aung Hlaing's touted concessions as a propaganda ploy to rebrand and therefore legitimise his rule.
The real test of her freedom, they say, will be whether she will be allowed to commune again with Myanmar's citizens -- and whether they will again feel safe to openly support her.
"I don't see any political changes by moving to house arrest," said one Yangon doctor, speaking anonymously out of security concerns.
"I am still worried," they said. "I hope to return to a better situation." -- AFP
