Malaysian and Burmese activists on Sunday urged the international community to refer Burma to the UN Security Council as they celebrated the birthday of detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Some 350 people from Malaysian non-governmental bodies and Burmese ethnic and political groups crammed into a function hall in the centre of Kuala Lumpur to mark Aung San Suu Kyi's 61st birthday today.

Burmese groups, including her National League for Democracy (NLD), sang political songs and called for the release of the leader, who has spent 10 of the last 17 years under house arrest.

"The time has come where the international community, especially the United Nations, must act without favour or fear, and bring the sufferings of the people of Burma to the attention of the UN Security Council," said a statement from 25 Malaysian and Burmese groups.

The groups said the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member, had roundly failed in its diplomatic efforts to persuade the military junta to move towards democracy.

"This shameful deadlock should compel Asean to be firm and substantiate its words with action: expel Burma from Asean," they said.

The executive director of Malaysian rights group Suaram, Yap Swee Seng, said Malaysia, as the engineer of Burma's entry into Asean in 1997, had a particular responsibility to support UN action.

"Malaysia has a principal obligation on Burma because it was Malaysia that supported the Burmese government entering Asean," he said.

Minimal 'slave' pay

An NLD Malaysia leader, Hlaing Myint, said groups were also lobbying for UN action against Burma on humanitarian grounds because of the minimal "slave" pay Burmese workers were subjected to.

"We are going to demand that Asean send a delegation to Burma, not to meet on political points, but to meet people in the grassroots, to see how they are suffering, how they are coping with the income and expenses," he said.

The United States put the international spotlight on Burma last December when it pushed the UN Security Council to hold a briefing on human rights and other problems there for the first time.

Washington is now lobbying for an unprecedented UN Security Council resolution calling on the regime to change its repressive policies.