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Burma's Suu Kyi urges sanctions.
Burma's Suu Kyi Urges Sanctions
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Monday, February 3, 1997 4:53 pm EST
RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- Nobel Peace Prize-winner
Aung San Suu Kyi appealed
Monday for international sanctions against
Burma's military regime, saying it has arrested
scores of pro-democracy supporters since
quelling a student uprising.
More than 100 people -- double the number
acknowledged by the government -- have
been arrested in the wake of the December
student protests, including 52 supporters of her
National League for Democracy, Suu Kyi said.
After secret trials, Burma announced it had
sentenced 34 people to seven-year prison terms
for fomenting the protests, Burma's most
significant demonstrations since an uprising against
military rule in 1988.
Sanctions are essential given ``large-scale
repression of the democracy movement,'' Suu Kyi
told reporters, who were given a rare chance to
meet with her in what has been increasing
government restrictions on her movements.
Security officials checked journalists'
identifications before allowing them past the
government barricades around the lakeside home
of Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel
Peace Prize for her efforts to bring democracy
to Burma. Plainclothes officers took
photographs of those entering.
Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council, which succeeded an earlier
military regime in 1988 after gunning down
thousands of protesters, has opened the
economy to foreign investment after years of
isolation.
Suu Kyi rejected the argument that foreign
investment in Burma will raise living standards
and freedom.
``The reason why we want sanctions is because
what the international investment is doing
now is putting more and more money into the
pockets of a small privileged group, who
become more keen on preserving the status
quo,'' she said.
She also praised the ``great perseverance and
courage'' of supporters who have gathered at
the Shwedagon pagoda, Rangoon's holiest shrine,
in recent weeks in the vain hope she
would appear to speak.
``We think that every single person who turns
up for the weekend has 10,000 behind him or
her,'' she said.
Inside the compound, about 20 party supporters
made preparations for a celebration Suu
Kyi plans to hold Feb. 12 for Union Day,
marking a pact signed by anti-colonial leaders
against British rule.
Suu Kyi expressed hope that 4,000 to 5,000
people would come -- more than the regime
has allowed her to meet in months.
She faulted the government for the secret
trials of those accused in the December protests.
``If the authorities have solid evidence of
their guilt, they should have no qualms about
making the trials public,'' Suu Kyi said.
The U.S. State Department, in its annual human
rights report issued last week, said that such
trials in Burma usually are decided in advance
and that maltreatment in prison is common.
Burmese Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw said Saturday
the report was ``not duly
substantiated.''
The SLORC has curtailed Suu Kyi's movement to
the extent possible without formally
returning her to house arrest. She was freed
from six years of house arrest in 1995.
The government has refused her calls for a
dialogue. Suu Kyi's supporters overwhelmingly
won democratic elections in 1990, but the
regime never honored the result.
[Associated Press, 3 Feb 1997].
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