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Four NLD members missing



Four NLD members missing

  	  				 
    RANGOON, Oct 29 (AFP) - Four members of the party of Burmese  
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi are missing after being detained 
by security forces on Tuesday, a party source said Wednesday. 
   The four were held after authorities moved in to stop Aung San  
Suu Kyi addressing a youth meeting at the National League for 
Democracy (NLD) office in Mayangone township on the outskirts of 
Rangoon. 
   They were taken away after a tussle with riot police when they  
refused to leave the area of the office. There was no information on 
them as of Wednesday evening. 
   Aung San Suu Kyi was stopped outside the barricaded party office  
in a three hour standoff early Tuesday, as security forces dispersed 
a gathering that was waiting for her. 
   The party source said 70 members of the NLD who were caught  
inside the office building when barricades were set up were taken 
away in trucks and released miles away. They had since returned 
home. 
   The NLD will try to hold similar meetings in the future at other  
Rangoon townships despite Tuesday's crackdown provided local party 
branches are willing to face the consequences, the source said. 
   The party has said Aung San Suu Kyi will take a personal role in  
promoting the organisation of the party's youth wing. 
   The ruling junta has shown signs of moderating its  
uncompromising stance against the NLD since Burma's controversial 
entry into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in July. It 
offered talks, albeit without Aung San Suu Kyi's participation. 
   Hundreds of delegates from around the country were finally  
allowed last month to attend a party convention -- the biggest in 
seven years -- at Aung San Suu Kyi's residential compound in the 
capital. 
   A foreign analyst said the junta was making clear it would not  
allow the NLD leader to hold political meetings outside her 
residence, where she was previously kept under house arrest for six 
years. 
   A senior government official on Tuesday slammed the NLD for  
"defying" the law and trying to cause confrontation by attempting to 
hold what he called a rally without official permission. 
   The NLD was hoping to use Tuesday's incident to embarrass the  
ruling junta so that the international community would be "tricked 
into exerting pressure on the Myanmar (Burma) government," he 
claimed. 
   Authorities routinely maintain a traffic blockade either side of  
the NLD leader's home and restrict her outside political activities. 
Visits to the compound are limited and phone lines are often cut. 
   The NLD won the last elections held in the military-run state in  
1990. The ruling junta, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, 
never recognised the result. 
   The NLD leader had been told she could invite supporters from  
townships to her house but had ignored the request of the 
authorities not to hold the meeting at Mayangone, the government 
official said. 
   The NLD's "political activities" risked "disturbing the  
prevailing tranquility and stability the township people are 
enjoying," he added. 
   Amnesty International said this month there had been no  
improvements since Burma became an ASEAN member and that some 57 NLD 
members had been sentenced to long prison terms in the first six 
months of this year. 
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