YANGON, Sept 20, 2021 (BSS/AFP) - Toppled Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi 
has "no comment" on a declaration of war against the junta by a shadow 
government dominated by lawmakers from her party, her lawyer said Monday.

   Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted Suu Kyi's National 
League for Democracy government in a February coup, sparking huge democracy 
protests which have triggered a bloody crackdown from the junta.

   NLD lawmakers make up the majority of a "National Unity Government" which 
is working to overturn the military regime and declared a "people's defensive 
war" earlier this month urging citizens to attack junta assets.

   Following the declaration, clashes between local "people's defence forces" 
and the military have increased, and over a dozen army-owned communications 
towers have been attacked, according to anti-junta groups.

   Suu Kyi had "no comment" when asked by her lawyers about the NUG's 
declaration of war, her lawyer Khin Maung Zaw said, and would comment only 
after discussions with others in the NLD leadership.

   "She said she never turns against the wishes of the people," he added.

   Nonviolence is a core principle of Suu Kyi's and was a defining 
characteristic of the democracy movement she led against a previous junta 
decades ago.

   But many young protesters have embraced the resistance movement, seeing it 
as the only way to permanently root out military dominance of the country's 
politics and economy.

   Nobel laureate Suu Kyi, 76, has been held under house arrest since the 
coup, cut off from the outside world apart from court appearances and 
meetings with her lawyers.

   She appeared at a special court in the capital Naypyidaw on Monday for the 
latest hearing over allegedly importing walkie-talkies illegally and flouting 
coronavirus restrictions during elections last year that her party won by a 
landslide.

   She faces a raft of other charges and could be jailed for decades if 
convicted.

   Journalists have been barred from all proceedings so far.

   The ongoing unrest has paralysed the economy of the Southeast Asian 
nation.

   More than 1,100 people have been killed and over 8,000 arrested, according 
to a local monitoring group.

   The military says the toll is much lower.