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RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- With riot police ringing 
her lakeside compound, opposition
leader Aung San Suu Kyi made no attempt to 
leave her home today to meet supporters at a
Rangoon junction as she has done for several 
weekends recently. 

About 300 of her supporters waited anyway at 
the Saya San junction, named after a
Buddhist monk who led a failed uprising against 
British rule during the 1930s. 

Officials of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize 
winner's political party said the government had
demanded she ask permission if she wanted to 
leave, but Suu Kyi is refusing to do so. 

Suu Kyi has said she is being illegally 
confined to her home. Earlier this week, party officials
said that 28 of its members had been arrested. 

The leader of Burma's democracy movement has 
been kept inside her compound -- with
riot police physically blocking her way when 
she has attempted to leave -- since last
weekend when university students took to the 
streets in the boldest display of civil dissent
since the nationwide democracy uprising of 
1988. 

The students were demanding an end to police 
brutality, the right to form a students union,
and greater civil liberties. Some called for 
democracy in this land long ruled by military
regimes. 

Four armored personnel carriers loaded with 
soldiers are now guarding the home of Gen.
Than Shwe, the leader of the ruling junta. 

Five tanks also remained stationed by the Sule 
Pagoda in downtown Rangoon, a focal point
for protests in 1988, and troops had sealed off 
Medical University 1, where students had
been staging sit ins earlier in the week. 

On Thursday, 92 students presented a petition 
to the school's rector demanding information
about three of their colleagues who were led 
away by police. 

One Australian tourist was manhandled by police 
as he attempted to videotape the sit-in. 

On Wednesday, troops entered the Mandalay 
Institute of Technology to break up a
demonstration that involved between 2,000 and 
3,000 students. 

Members of a young Buddhist monks union also 
stoned cars of regional military
commanders who had come to Mandalay to seek the 
blessings of a respected Buddhist
elder monk on Monday. 

The military officials were forced to turn 
back. 

Several trains from Mandalay to Rangoon were 
delayed this week because troops were
searching for students heading down to join 
protests in the capital. 

[By PATRICK MCDOWELL, Associated Press Writer
Saturday, December 14, 1996].

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