Aung San Suu Kyi criticised for using "Burma" instead of Myanmar
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Yangon - Myanmar democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi has been rapped by election authorities for repeatedly referring to her country as "Burma" in her speeches abroad, media reports said Friday.
The Election Commission has written to Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party, directing it "to write/address the name of the state as prescribed in the constitution," The New Light of Myanmar newspaper quoted the directive as saying.
The military-sponsored constitution of 2010 declares, "The state shall be known as The Republic of the Union of Myanmar." Suu Kyi, 67, is winding up a European tour to Switzerland, Norway, Britain, Ireland and France, and scheduled to return on Saturday.
In several of her high-profile speeches she has called the country Burma, the name of the South-East Asian nation until 1991, when the ruling junta changed it to Myanmar.
Myanmar was originally an ancient name for the central part of thecountry, and is deemed by some to be more inclusive of the nation'svarious ethnic groups, of which Burmans account for an estimated less than 70 per cent.
The name Burma was given to the country by the British, who occupied it from 1826 to 1948.//DPA
