AFP-Myanmar deports foreigners as s (r)

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Myanmar deports foreigners as stand-off perists
Sat 15 Aug 98 - 10:59 GMT 

YANGON, Aug 15 (AFP) - Myanmar deported 18 foreign pro-democracy activists
Saturday as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi dug in for the fourth day of
a roadside stand-off with the ruling military.

The visibly releived activists arrived in Bangkok vowing they would carry
on campaigning for human rights in Myanmar but said they had been well
treated during their six-day detention.

They were sentenced to five years hard labour by a court in Myanmar Friday
for attempting to incite unrest, but the penalties were immediately
suspended and they were ordered to be deported, diplomats said.

"We were treated like kings and queens, had wonderful living quarters, fans
and air-con ... everything we wanted," US student Sapna Chhattpar, 20, told
reporters at Bangkok's airport.

"But it's hard to be happy when the people of Burma who have done the same
things we have are still under attack."

Their release came after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi began a fourth
day in her van on a roadside near Yangon after being blocked from visiting
provincial supporters.

Diplomats said the van, also carrying two drivers and an official from her
National League for Democracy (NLD) party, has been towed to a bridge where
she spent six days in a similar confrontation last month.

"It looks like nothing has changed and we're going through the same thing
as last time, though this one could be longer," said one western diplomat,
referring to the previous stand-off which ended when the Nobel peace
laureate was forcibly taken back to her home on July 29.

It is her fourth failed attempt to travel to meet provincial supporters in
little over a month. The junta has said it cannot allow her to proceed
further for her own safety as there are security problems in the area.

Her van is now at the scene of last month's confrontation -- a small bridge
some 25 kilometres (15 miles) outside Yangon -- but this time she has
brought extra supplies, diplomats said.

A junta spokesman said an ambulance was at the site and security personnel
have been deployed to protect her.

In a statement on Saturday, a junta spokesman added that efforts were being
made to make her roadside stay comfortable as possible and that she had
been provided with a tape player and Western music cassets by Madonna and
Michael Jackson.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday the
standoff with Aung San Suu Kyi had reached its "moment of truth" and that
the international community needed to step up pressure on the junta.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is again asserting her basic right to move freely in her
country," said Albright at a meeting in Washington with visiting Japanese
Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura.

At their trial Friday, the presiding judge in Yangon told the 18 activists
they would have 90 days to appeal the jail sentence. But military
authorities intervened to order a suspension and their deportation,
witnesses said.

However the suspension of the sentences was conditional on the activists
pledging not to violate Myanmar law again and "refraining from acts
detrimental to the people of Myanmar," said an official.

The suspension was ordered in "view of bilateral relations between Myanmar
and the relevant countries," the home ministry said.

In a statement released in Bangkok Saturday, Myanmar's exiled National
Council for the Union of Burma, an umbrella group of anti-junta
organizations including opposition NLD cabinet ministers, condemned the
sentences and deportations as unlawful.

"This evidently shows that the (junta) is interpreting and using the law to
suit its own purpose," the statement said.

"We would like to affirm that we take much pride in and put on record the
valliant act of the 18 friends of Burma," it said, adding it was delighted
at their release.

The activists were rounded up Sunday handing out pamphlets urging people to
remember the 10th anniversary of a bloody military crackdown on
pro-democracy demonstrators on August 8, 1988.

The detainees were six US nationals, three Thais, three Malaysians, three
Indonesians, two Filipinos and one Australian.

The White House welcomed the release of the activists but also issued a
warning to Yangon.

"While we are pleased that these American citizens will be returning to the
United States, we think this ought to serve as a reminder that there is an
absence of protection of basic human rights in Burma," said spokesman
Michael McCurry.

The NLD won 1990 polls in Myanmar by a landslide but the junta has refused
to give up power.