by Veronica Smith

WASHINGTON, Jan 26 (AFP) - Burmese democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi received her first US honorary university degree Sunday in absentia, and in prepared remarks urged a boycott of companies doing business with Burma's military regime.

Aung San Suu Kyi was unable to receive the doctor of laws degree in person at The American University because she would be refused reentry into Burma, said her husband, Michael Aris, who accepted the honor on her behalf.

Aris, a British scholar of Tibet and Himalayan studies at Oxford University, said he had not seen his wife in more than a year. He then read her prepared commencement address to more than 400 graduating students, their families and friends, as well as her supporters who arrived from across the country for the event.

"You who are gathered here to celebrate the opening of doors of hope and opportunity might wish to assist our fight for a Burma where young people can know the joys of hope and opportunity," Aung San Suu Kyi said in the address read by Aris.

In an impassioned plea for human rights, the 1991 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize called for her audience to stand up to repression and tyranny.

"Those of us who decided to work for democracy in Burma made our choice in the conviction that the danger of standing up for basic human rights in a repressive society was preferable to the safety of a quiescent life in servitude," she wrote.

The dissident blasted multinational businesses' investment in Burma for shoring up the military regime, and urged a boycott.

"Investment that only goes to enrich an already wealthy elite bent on monopolizing both economic and political power cannot contribute towards equality and justice, the foundation stones for a sound democracy," Aung San Suu Kyi wrote.

"I would therefore like to call upon those who have an interest in expanding their capacity for promoting intellectual freedom and humanitarian ideals to take a principled stand against companies which are doing business with the military regime of Burma.

"Please use your liberty to promote ours."

American University President Benjamin Ladner, before presenting a hood representing the degree to Aris, said she was being honored for her distinguished life work.

Ladner, addressing her directly as if she were present, noted the admiration of the Burmese people and international respect "for your personal courage, commitment to democracy and embodiment of humanitarian ideals."

He recalled her role in becoming an advocate for democracy and helping to establish the National League for Democracy (NLD). She was arrested by the military government in 1989 and kept under house arrest in solitary confinement for six years, until July 1995.

In interviews at a post-ceremony reception, her supporters seemed hopeful that increasing public awareness of the brutality of the military regime will build pressure for change.

Sein Win, head of the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, said he was "optimistic." "The situation in Burma is moving," he said.

Sein Win, who will speak next week at a conference at the university entitled "Burma: The South Africa of the 90s," said he backed the use of boycotts. "We ask the American people to help us," he said.

The reception crowd was buzzing with high expectations for the new US secretary of state, Madeleine Albright.

"We have a friend in Albright because she understands the struggle of the people of Burma," said Riri Win, a political science professor at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California.