SCMP-Foreign activists celebrate de

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

South China Morning Post
Saturday  August 15  1998
Foreign activists celebrate deportation 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok and Agencies 
Eighteen foreign activists who handed out little red pro-democracy leaflets
in Rangoon last weekend were yesterday sentenced to five years' hard labour
- for about three minutes.

An official from the Ministry of Home Affairs read an order, signed by Home
Affairs Minister Tin Hlaing, reducing the sentences to deportation moments
after the judge made his ruling.

Diplomats were told to be at Rangoon's Mingaladon airport to meet the group
at 6am today before their departure for Bangkok.

The courtroom turnaround followed an announcement by the military regime
that an ambulance was on standby at a roadblock where Nobel Peace Prize
winner Aung San Suu Kyi was in the third day of a new stand-off over her
right to travel outside Rangoon.

The foreign defendants, who appeared solemn when the judge read out the
five-year sentences, jumped up, embraced each other, shook hands and
thanked those around them in the courtroom after the deportation order was
announced.

They were also embraced by diplomats from their respective countries who
attended the seven-hour trial in a small concrete courthouse outside the
walls of Insein Prison north of Rangoon.

The six Americans, three Malaysians, three Indonesians, three Thais, two
Filipinos and one Australian were charged, after six days of questioning
and investigation, with violating an emergency law that allows for 20-year
jail terms for inciting unrest and disturbing the peace and tranquillity of
the state.

The sentence reduction came after one of the defendants, a Malaysian man,
appealed to the judge. He said he and his colleagues meant no harm to the
Burmese people, didn't intend to incite unrest and were unaware of the
local laws.

The judge then stepped down from his chair and allowed the official from
the Ministry of Home Affairs to read the deportation order.

A US Embassy spokeswoman said that all 18 detainees would be leaving
Rangoon for Bangkok today after spending last night in the Burmese capital
in a police guest house.

The activists were detained last Sunday, the day after the 10th anniversary
of a failed nationwide democracy uprising, for handing out small cards to
Burmese citizens telling them the outside world supported their struggle
and to not give up.

In Washington, the Clinton administration expressed relief that the six
Americans would be deported.

"While we're pleased that these American citizens will be returning to the
United States, this episode is a reminder that there is an absence of
protection of human rights in Burma and a failure of the Burmese Government
to allow freedom of expression," White House press secretary Mike McCurry
said.

Meanwhile, Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, 53, remained stopped at a checkpoint 32km
from Rangoon after she attempted on Tuesday to travel to a meeting with
supporters of her National League for Democracy.