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AP: Burma's Illegal Actions



 BURMA's ILLEGAL ACTIONS

   By AYE AYE WIN
 Associated Press Writer
   RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- Burma's military regime has prohibited
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from holding her weekly speech to
supporters outside her home, opposition sources said today.
   The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated
Press that authorities contacted Aung Shwe, chairman of Suu Kyi's National
League for Democracy, and said the meetings would be banned beginning
Saturday.
   A senior government official confirmed the ban and said Suu Kyi's party
had abused the government's leniency in permitting the public meetings.
   The ban could worsen tensions escalating since the regime rounded up 262
democracy activists two weeks ago to prevent a party congress that marked
Suu Kyi's biggest political triumph since her release from six years of
house arrest last July.
   During the congress, 10,000 people attended Suu Kyi's weekend speech,
four times the usual number. The government countered the perceived swell
in support with its own mass rallies in subsequent days.
   The gatherings outside Suu Kyi's home are technically illegal, but the
junta, known formally as the State Law and Order Restoration Council, had
allowed them. Burmese laws prohibit political meetings of more than 50
people.
   Reaction from leaders of Suu Kyi's party was not immediately available
but the crackdown appeared aimed at quashing any momentum building inside
Burma for Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent
promotion of democracy and leader of the country's opposition since
anti-government protests were crushed in 1998.
   Government rhetoric expressed through state-controlled newspapers in
recent days has grown increasingly shrill, attacking Suu Kyi's husband,
British academic Michael Aris, and declaring any move by her party to draft
a separate constitution illegal.
   The regime came under harsh international media coverage for the mass
arrests, demonstrating its will to crush dissent while trying to stay
afloat by quietly cutting business deals with foreign firms eager to profit
by developing Burma's moribund economy.
   Most of the foreign journalists admitted to cover the congress have now
left. The Bangkok Post newspaper in neighboring Thailand reported that
Burmese authorities have tightened restrictions on granting new visas for
journalists.
   A crackdown on the meetings had been feared for months. Commentaries in
state-run newspapers repeatedly indicated that the authorities could act at
any time to suppress what has amounted to the only open forum for dissent
allowed in the country.
   The regime has staged massive rallies around the country to counter
perceptions of support for Suu Kyi, but participants at one said they were
told to go or pay a fine.
   The congress amounted to a symbolic challenge of the junta's legitimacy,
coming on the sixth anniversary of an overwhelming victory by Suu Kyi's
party in parliamentary elections. The junta never allowed Parliament to
convene.
   Though only 18 delegates eluded arrest and attended, they adopted
resolutions demanding that the military, which has ruled since 1962, turn
over power to the civilian Parliament.
   The junta announced last Friday that the 262 detainees would be freed,
but the opposition says about 118 remain in custody.
   
KT
ISBDA