Colin Powell Honors Entertainers Ap

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Subject: Colin Powell Honors Entertainers Appeal SLORC

                      The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)

                     April  10, 1997 Thursday, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A2

HEADLINE:  Short Stuff

   Forty years after his graduation, retired Gen. Colin Powell is having a new
center named for him at the City College of New York. The Colin L. Powell Center
for Public Policy Study, which will study policy issues affecting New York City,
will open at the college this fall. Powell released a statement saying he was
"deeply honored."  Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Carl Reiner and seven other
prominent American entertainers have appealed to  Burma's  military government
to free a Burmese comedian imprisoned for mocking the regime. In a letter to Lt.
Gen. Khin Nyunt, head of military intelligence, the entertainers asked for the
release of Par Par Lay. The comedian was part of a musical troupe that performed
at the Rangoon home of Aung San Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace
Prize

for her nonviolent campaign for democracy. A contraband videotape of the
performance, widely circulated in  Burma,  shows him satirizing the ruling State
Law and Order Restoration Council. He was sentenced to seven years' hard labor
for "spreading false news."