AP: More Illegal Actions in Burma

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                MORE ILLEGAL ACTIONS IN BURMA

   By AYE AYE WIN
 Associated Press Writer
   RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- The military government escalated its
confrontation with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi on Friday,
decreeing heavy new penalties for disturbing the public order.
   Suu Kyi, who speaks each weekend before large groups of pro-democracy
followers outside the gates of her Rangoon home, appeared to be the
immediate target of the decree.
   The law, announced on state radio and television, calls for prison
sentences of five to 20 years for any individual or group who incites,
demonstrates, delivers speeches and makes or distributes oral or written
statements "in order to undermine the stability of the state, community
peace and tranquility and prevalence of law and order."
   It also calls for fines and confiscation of violators' property, and for
any violating organization to be suspended, dissolved or banned.
   Neither Suu Kyi nor her party had any immediate comment on the decree,
which was a clear reaction to their recent moves challenging the regime's
authority.
   In Washington, State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns called on the
Burmese government "to cease and desist in its pressure tactics against the
democrats in Burma."
   "Aung San Suu Kyi has a right under international and under any
reasonable standard of decency to speak out about conditions in her own
country," Burns said.
   Earlier Friday, Suu Kyi indicated she planned to go ahead with a
Saturday meeting in defiance of a prohibition by the regime.
   After a party congress last month, Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy announced plans to write a constitution, rejecting one that a
government-organized convention is still drafting after three years of
work.
   The law, signed by the chairman of the country's junta, Senior Gen. Than
Shwe, made unauthorized writing of a state constitution subject to the same
penalties.
   It said criticism of the convention's work "amounts to obstruction,
disturbance and opposition to the development of the genuine multi-party
democracy system and the peaceful and systematic transfer of the
responsibility of the state."
   Suu Kyi's party was told Thursday by the junta -- the State Law and
Order Restoration Council -- that her weekend meetings would be banned
starting Saturday. A government source confirmed the order and said that
the party had abused the regime's leniency.
   The ban would deprive thousands of Burmese an opportunity to see Suu
Kyi, who was freed from six years of house arrest last July. The government
has blocked most of her efforts to travel in Burma, even to the capital's
suburbs, although clandestine tapes of the meetings are distributed in
Rangoon and nationwide.
   The meetings have always been technically illegal. They started with
about 400 people a week after Suu Kyi's release, then swelled to 2,000 a
week after her party walked out of the constitutional convention late last
year.
   Up to 10,000 people gathered at Suu Kyi's gates and cheered her the day
the party congress opened, despite the arrests of 262 party delegates.
   The opposition reported Friday that 154 of those arrested have been
freed. The whereabouts of the rest were unknown, though about 20 are
believed to have been transferred to Insein prison near Rangoon, notorious
for torture.
   The party congress called on the military to turn over power to the
pro-democratic Parliament elected in 1990.
   The regime, criticized internationally for the mass arrests, has
responded by organizing large rallies around the country. Participants at
one said they were forced to attend.
   The military has ruled Burma since 1962. Suu Kyi, daughter of
independence hero Aung San, emerged as the leader of the opposition after
pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988 were bloodily suppressed by the army.
   
KT
ISBDA