[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
Showdown looms as Burmese junta's a
Subject: Showdown looms as Burmese junta's arrests top 90.
Showdown looms as Burmese junta's arrests top 90
------------------------------------------------
Rangoon, Wednesday:
Burma's military rulers have detained at least 90 pro-democracy
politicians in a crackdown designed to scuttle their meeting this
weekend, an opposition source said today.
Most of those detained were elected members of the National
League for Democracy, headed by the Nobel peace prize winner Aung Sann
Suu Kyi. The NLD plans this weekend to hold its first congress since its
1990 election victory, which the military refused to accept.
"The number has gone up to 90, the additional ones are also from
Rangoon," a source close to Ms Suu Kyi said today, adding that at lease
44 were to attend the meeting.
The state-run media did not report the crackdown - the worst
since Ms Suu Kyi's release from house arrest last July - and Government
officials declined to comment.
Burma's Foreign Minister, Mr Ohn Gyaw, told a local governor near
Tokyo that reports of the arrest were "fabricated", Japan's Kyodo
newsagency said.
Ms Suu Kyi and other NLD members spent today preparing for the
three-day congress at her house on Sunday.
Diplomats in Rangoon said the stage was set a fresh confrontation
between Ms Suu Kyi and the military Government but added it was unclear
how far the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council would push its
crackdown against the NLD.
The Australian Government today condemned the reported arrests as
a "major backward step".
[Reuter, 23 May 1996].
------------------------------------------------------------------------