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Burma-unrest,sched-2ndlead : Tight
- Subject: Burma-unrest,sched-2ndlead : Tight
- From: moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 03 Apr 1997 20:20:00
Subject: Burma-unrest,sched-2ndlead : Tight security in Burma ahead of Burmese New Year festivities
Burma-unrest,sched-2ndlead : Tight security in Burma
ahead of Burmese New Year festivities
RANGOON, April 2 (AFP) - Burma's military
authorities kept up tight
security measures here Wednesday in the wake of
unrest and
ahead of New Year festivities when huge crowds
will hit the
streets.
The caution came as Tin Oo, vice-chairman of Aung
San Suu Kyi's
National League for Democracy (NLD), reported
that nine party
members have been detained in the central Burmese
city of
Mandalay.
The detained party members included Htin Gyaw, a
candidate
elected in 1990 to a parliament never convened by
the junta
because the NLD would have held more than 80
percent of the
seats.
A junta spokesman denied that party members had
been arrested,
and said he did not yet have information on
reports from a
Mandalay resident that 150 monks have been
disrobed since the
unrest between Buddhist monks and Moslems began in
mid-March.
Tin Oo said the arrests of NLD members were part
of ongoing
attempts to fabricate evidence that the party was
instigating unrest.
"These people happened to be in their living
quarters and came
out to see what was happening," and intelligence
personnel at the
demonstrations took their photographs so they
could cite an NLD
presence, Tin Oo said.
The All Burma Young Monks Union (ABYMU) said in a
statement
received in Bangkok Wednesday that security
forces have killed
three monks and arrested 100 others since the
demonstrations
began.
Tin Oo said monks have been arrested in Rangoon
and Mandalay,
but accurate numbers were unavailable, and the
party had not
heard of monks being killed.
"The government should publish a true and
accurate picture of
what actually happened," or such rumors would
continue to crop
up, he said, noting that local authorities
usually forced monks to
disrobe when they took them into custody.
"It is possible the authorities are using the
opportunity of these
disturbances to crack down on the monkhood," a
Rangoon-based
diplomat said.
Moslem residents of Rangoon remained
apprehensive, as many of
those who left the city have not yet returned,
and roadblocks were
still put up around the city every night,
witnesses said.
Government offices traditionally build "pandals,"
or makeshift
platforms on the roadsides, to stage
entertainment and to throw
water at passers-by during the Burmese New Year
festival to be
held April 13-17.
But the platforms at most government offices were
being
dismantled.
"The government seems a little bit cautious. They
normally try to
make the holiday very enjoyable, to let the
people blow off steam
and release their frustrations," one observer said.
During the celebrations, security forces usually
turn a blind eye to
public drinking and traffic violations and a deaf
ear to derogatory
comments about the authorities -- which at other
times would
never be tolerated -- intervening only to break
up drunken
altercations, he said.
A spokesman for the junta said the platforms had
been removed
as past experience had shown they blocked streets
and caused
heavy traffic jams.
Big private sector platforms that stick well out
into the roads, like
the one built by Total, the French oil company,
were unaffected,
however.
Communal unrest broke out in the central Burmese
town of
Mandalay on March 16, when groups of Buddhist
monks began
attacking Moslem properties, leaving a dozen
mosques destroyed.
First degree security alerts were in place in
five cities, including
Rangoon, Mandalay and Sittwe, in Burma's
southwestern Arakan
State, where there is a high proportion of
Moslems, reports said.
Committees of senior monks, Moslem elders and
government
authorities have been formed to head off further
troubles, officials
said.
The attacks began after Moslem suspects in the
attempted rape of
a Buddhist girl reached a settlement with the
authorities and were
set free.
The junta has blamed the troubles on opposition
elements out to
sabotage Burma's expected entry into the
Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (ASEAN), whose members include the
predominantly Moslem Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.
But sources inside and outside the country said
the authorities had
created the communal disturbances to distract the
country's
400,000 monks from their grievances with the
military.