REUTER: 5000 Gathered at the Saturd

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Subject: REUTER: 5000 Gathered at the Saturday's NLD Forum

REUTER: 5000 Gathered at the Saturday's NLD Forum
    
 RANGOON, May 25 (Reuter) - Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Burma's
military authorities had arrested 256 of her supporters in an attempt to
stop Sunday's planned party congress from going ahead.
     Suu Kyi told a crowd of about 5,000 people outside her front gates in
the rain on Saturday that the ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) had arrested 256 members of her National League for
Democracy (NLD) party.
     At least 232 of those arrested were elected representatives of the NLD
who were planning to attend the party congress at Suu Kyi's house.
     "We are going to go ahead with the meeting," Suu Kyi said to deafening
applause for her speech, a regular weekly address. Most of the 300
representatives expected for the meeting have been arrested.
     Plain-clothes military intelligence agents mingled in the crowd but
the gathering passed off without incident.
     Since Monday the government has been plucking NLD members off the
streets, taking them from their houses or hauling them off buses as they
attempt to travel to Rangoon, opposition sources said.
     The SLORC has denied arresting the NLD members, saying they were only
detained for questioning in order to prevent "anarchy" that could result
from the congress.
     "These are very strange actions," Suu Kyi said about the arrests. "I
wonder how they can say everything is under control...does that mean they
can maintain law and order only by putting people in jail?"
     The three-day congress of elected representatives of the NLD coincides
with the sixth anniversary of the party's landslide election victory on May
27, 1990, which was never recognised by the SLORC.
     The congress was to be the first time the elected representatives had
met as a group since they won 82 percent, or 392, of the 485 seats up for
grabs in the 1990 election, which was called by the SLORC.
     It would also be the first time NLD leader Suu Kyi, who was released
from six years of house arrest last July, meets the representatives
together.
     From her traditional perch atop a table to allow her to speak to the
crowd over the gates of her home, Suu Kyi condemned the SLORC for not
allowing the representatives to assume their elected posts.
     "We have to ask why the SLORC held this election," said the democracy
leader who was under house arrest at the time of the poll. "It was the
first free and fair election in 30 years and the SLORC was praised and
honoured for this."
     "But once you do something which brings dignity you should keep it
up," she added to applause from the crowd on busy University Avenue.
      Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said on Friday she was
worried the SLORC would not allow the customary Saturday gathering to take
place this week and block off streets to keep people away.
     She said in English the authorities seemed determined to stop her
party from meeting.
     "But our meeting today is far bigger than it usually is despite
inclement weather," she said. "This shows the people of Burma support fully
our intent to hold our meeting."
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