Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's

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Subject: Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's public meetings.



		Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's public meetings.
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	Burma's military authorities stepped up the pressure on Ms Suu 
Kyi yesterday, warning they could end the opposition leader's weekend 
meet-the-public sessions which they said were meant to disrupt the rule 
of law and economic order.

	A governemnt statement carried in the State-run New Light of 
Burma also said the junta had banned a scheduled National League for 
Democracy congress this weekend because of fears of mass "street 
disturbances".

	Armed riot police and barricades blocked access to Ms Suu Kyi's 
residence yesterday for the third day in a row.

	They prevented the NLD from holding its congress and, for the 
first time since she was freed from six years' house arrest last year, 
kept the opposition leader from giving her usual weekend speeches.

	Meanwhile, a statement from the NLD responded to an earlier 
charge by the junta of collusion with the United States and asserted its 
right to hold confernces without specials permission.

	NLD chairman Mr Aung Shwe urged the authorities to immediately 
release all party supporters detained in the reu-up to the three-day 
congress that was to have begun on Friday.

	"There is no foundation to the accusations made by the State 
authorities that arrangements for the All Burma Congress of the National 
League for Democracy were made in collusion with United States and other 
foreign powers," Mr Shwe said.

	The government statement says speeches by Ms Suu Kyi and her 
fellow NLD leaders Mr Tin Oo and Mr Kyi Maung are aimed at "creating 
direct confrontation with the Government".

	The statement did not flatly say the weekend meetings would be 
halted but it did give a long series of arguments against them and noted 
that Interior Ministry and security officials had warned the NLD in JUne 
that they "must no longer continue".

	The party congress had been timed for the weekend to "create 
street disturbances with the use of force of mass who would have 
assembled at the roadside talks", the statement said.

[By a correspondent in Rangoon, AFP, 30 September 1996].

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