Myanmar's detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has started refusing food deliveries, her party said Tuesday, but the ruling junta denied rumours she had launched a hunger strike.
Exiled dissidents in India and Thailand reported that the Nobel Peace Prize winner last accepted fresh food supplies on August 15 but her National League for Democracy (NLD) said the circumstances remained unclear.
"I cannot confirm whether she is on hunger strike, but we heard she didn't collect her food since two weeks ago. We are very worried about this situation as we have no direct contact with her at all," said NLD spokesman Nyan Win.
"We also heard she gave demands to the authorities two weeks ago. We don't know what her demands were but it is likely they were regarding her detention."
A Myanmar government official, however, dismissed the reports of a hunger strike.
"It is just rumours, it is not true," he said, refusing to be named. "We have not got any (political) demands from her."
Still, the rumours were persistent enough to spread to Western diplomatic circles, with one diplomat who requested anonymity telling AFP: "We are trying to know more. The only person who has seen her is the doctor."
Aung San Suu Kyi's doctor and lawyer were permitted to visit her on August 17 when she was given a medical checkup, her first since February.
One exiled opposition party based on the Thai-Myanmar border said it had heard Aung San Suu Kyi's weekly food supplies were last accepted on August 15 but were turned away on August 22.
Aung San Suu Kyi, 63, has spent most of the past 19 years confined to her lakeside Yangon home. Her latest detention began more than five years ago.
She has been allowed little contact with the outside world -- she met her lawyer, Kyi Win, twice in August but that was their first meeting since 2004.
Last week the junta said Aung San Suu Kyi had refused to meet visiting UN special envoy Ibrahim Gambari, and state television aired images of his two aides standing in vain outside her compound waiting for a response.
Gambari also failed to meet junta head Than Shwe, and left the country on Saturday with few results.
In an attempt to soothe international outrage after a violent crackdown on anti-junta protests last September, the generals appointed a liaison, labour minister Aung Kyi, to negotiate with Aung San Suu Kyi.
But they have not met since January, when the opposition leader complained about the slow pace of their talks.
Aung San Suu Kyi remains a powerfully potent symbol of the struggle to end military rule in Myanmar despite being largely silenced by the generals.
Her party won national elections in 1990 but the junta -- which has ruled Myanmar with an iron grip since 1962 -- never allowed it to assume power.

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