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PRESS RELEASE
>From Burmese Relief Center--Japan

Burma Democracy Activists Plot Strategy in Kyoto Retreat

Activists from around Japan converged on Yamazaki in Kyoto
Prefecture on November 18 and 19 to plan new and better
ways to aid Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and
the democratic forces who support her. 

More than 40 people from Japan, Burma, India, and several
Western countries discussed issues including how to react if
the increasingly vocal Nobel laureate is rearrested; how to
reverse the escalation of Japanese aid and investment to
SLORC, the Burmese military junta; and how to discourage
tourists from traveling to the wartorn country during SLORC's
"Visit Myanmar Year 1996" campaign.  Participants also
considered ways to alert the Japanese media and government to
the dangers of SLORC's upcoming National Convention,
through which the junta  hopes to pass a constitution that
would permanently bar Suu Kyi from politics and enshrine
into law the military's leading role in government. 
 
Participants, who ranged in age from high school students to
retired teachers, also saw the premiere of the documentary
"The Fall of Kawmoorah," an eyewitness account about
atrocities committed by SLORC against the Karen ethnic
minority and the Burmese army's own soldiers during fighting
on the Thai-Burma border earlier this year. 

This was the sixth "Burma Study/Action Weekend" organized
annually by Nara-based Burmese Relief Center--Japan and
supported by other Burmese democracy organizations
throughout Japan.

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