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NEWS - Myanmar Accuses Suu Kyi of C
Myanmar Accuses Suu Kyi of Creating Anarchy
Reuters
04-AUG-98
YANGON, Aug 4 (Reuters)- Myanmar's military government
accused opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday of
trying to foment anarchy with her marathon car sit-in.
``Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy
(NLD) party, despite chanting democracy slogans, in reality
have been engaged all along in inciting unrest,'' one
state-owned Myanmar-language newspapers said on
Tuesday.
Security personnel acting on behalf of Myanmar's ruling
State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) forcibly
ended a six-day car protest by Suu Kyi last Wednesday and
took her back to her Yangon home.
Suu Kyi had been stopped at a bridge near a village outside
Yangon on July 24 and prevented from driving to the
western township of Pathein to meet supporters. She was
told to return to the capital but refused to budge.
Sources in her National League for Democracy (NLD) said
she became dehydrated and weak during the ordeal.
Myanmar newspapers, the main mouthpiece for the
government, said her marathon car protest was designed to
draw attention to her demand that the government convene
a parliament by August 21 made up of members elected in
polls in May 1990.
Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide victory in those polls but the
result was ignored by the military.
``The real purpose of her recent trips outside Yangon is to
plan protests and demonstrations in these regions in support
of her ultimatum that the government convene a parliament,''
another Myanmar-language newspaper said.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was under house arrest
for six years until mid-1995, has been stopped several times
in recent weeks while attempting to visit supporters outside
the capital, Yangon.
Suu Kyi has said she will try to venture out of Yangon again
once she has recuperated from her latest protest, but the
government has tightened its control of movement in and out
of her house and is likely to try to prevent her from
travelling.
The newspapers said Suu Kyi hoped to agitate ahead of the
10-year anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising on August
8, which was bloodily suppressed by the military and
resulted in scores of deaths, hundreds of wounded and
thousands of arrests.
``The systematic plans have been made to create 1988-style
anarchy involving the people into the unrest once the
students spark it,'' one commentary said.
The papers said all measures were needed to prevent
anarchy developing as it did 10 years ago.
``The state and the entire people will act decisively to
prevent whatever peril from within or outside the country,
which will mar building of a peaceful, modern future
nation,''
said another newspaper.
``Democracy cannot be built on the road,'' it added.
The exiled Myanmar political activist group, the All Burma
Students Democratic Front (ABSDF), said they did not
anticipate violence in Yangon during the anniversary next
Saturday but planned protests outside Myanmar.
``The overseas Myanmar will organise rallies in Japan, the
United States, Australia, Thailand and elsewhere to mark the
10th anniversary of the crackdown, but I don't think the
opposition will do anything in Yangon,'' Aung Nai Oo, ABSDF
foreign affairs chief, told Reuters by telephone from the
Thai-Myanmar border.
A Yangon-based diplomat agreed:
``The opposition made no move to mark the anniversary of
the bloody coup in past years and since the government has
total control over the situation, I don't think the NLD will
be
able to organise the protest or gathering,'' he told
Reuters.