NLD to hold party Congress

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26Sep96 BURMA: BURMA'S DEMOCRACY PARTY TO HOLD CONGRESS. 09:49 GMT  
RANGOON, Sept 26 (Reuter) - Burma's National League for Democracy (NLD) said
on Thursday it would hold a congress September 27-29 to celebrate the eighth
anniversary of the party's founding.
A party official told Reuters about 200 people had been invited to attend
the congress. A plan to hold a similar gathering in May spurred widespread
arrests of democracy activists by the military government.
"We have sent out about 200 invitations to elected representatives from all
over the country. But we don't know how many will be able to attend," the
NLD official said.
The meeting will be at held the house of party leader and co-founder Aung
San Suu Kyi.
The NLD, which won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election that was
never recognised by the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC), tried to hold its first-ever gathering of elected representatives
in late May.
It would have been the first time Nobel laureate Suu Kyi met the elected
representatives as a group. She was under house arrest during the 1990 election.
But days before the meeting was to be held, the SLORC launched a sweeping
crackdown on NLD members, arresting more than 260 politicians in a couple of
days.
The SLORC released most of the activists after about 10 days, saying it had
only detained them in an effort to avoid anarchy or unrest that could result
from the party meeting.
Suu Kyi and the members of the executive council were spared arrest, but
they held a meeting with about 300 party members instead of the original
gathering of elected representatives.
After the meeting, Suu Kyi said the NLD vowed to increase the momentum of
its efforts to restore democracy to Burma.
She said the NLD, which pulled out of government-sponsored constitutional
talks last November, had decided to draft its own version of the constitution.
Shortly afterward, the SLORC passed a sweeping law, seen as an effort to
muzzle Suu Kyi and the NLD, calling for long prison terms for any person or
organisation seen disrupting the government's constitution-writing efforts
or viewed as trying to disrupt peace and stability of the country.
About 70 NLD members and supporters have been arrested or charged and given
long prison terms since May.
One diplomat said the upcoming party meeting would be a test of how serious
the SLORC was in its desire to muzzle Suu Kyi.
"Although this size gathering will clearly be seen as a challenge to the
SLORC...so far government reaction has been low key," the diplomat said.
"NLD attendees have started to arrive in town, but no arrests or detentions
that we've heard of so far."  
(c) Reuters Limited 1996
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