[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index
][Thread Index
]
Burmese regime tightens security (T
Subject: Burmese regime tightens security (The Times of India, 7/12/96.)
Burmese regime tightens security
The Times of India, 7/12/96.
RANGOON: Police sealed off streets on Friday near a
Rangoon campus as more than 100 students apparently tried to
start a protest, four days after the biggest demonstration since
the bloody 1988 uprising against military rule.
Security at the Rangoon Institute of Technology has been tight
since the last protest was broken up Tuesday outside Rangoon's
holiest shrine, the gilded Shwedagon Pagoda.
Witnesses said the students tried to leave the campus in early
afternoon, but riot police immediately sealed off the main road
running past the campus with six fire trucks.
Witnesses beyond the barriers could not see what was
happening inside, but said the joint action by the students
suggested another protest was afoot.
Earlier, about 30 students living in an off-campus dormitory
were refused entry to the institute, there the majority of
students in two protests since October have been enrolled.
The rapid action by the security forces indicated that the
military regime wanted no repeat of the demonstration by 1,000
students who staged a sit-in on Monday, then marched through
Rangoon all night.
The regime has been wary of any link between the
demonstrations and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu
Kyi's prodemocracy movement. Kyi Maung, a senior leader of
her party, was detained for a week after the October protest.
Government officials blamed this week's protest on "political
elements."
The protest and a smaller one in October stemmed from a
police beating of three students after a dispute with a food stall
owner. But political overtones were increasingly evident in the
protest earlier this week, with banners championing freedom
and human rights.
Ms Suu Kyi had denied links to the protest but voiced support
for the students on Thursday after breaking three days of house
confinement imposed by the,government. (AP)