Bangkok Post News (6/9/98)

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<bigger>Security tight but campus calm

</bigger>

<italic>UN chief again urges junta to hold dialogue

</italic>A downtown Rangoon university was sealed off by riot police
yesterday after three consecutive days of unrest, witnesses said, as UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Burmese authorities to move towards
democracy and hold a dialogue with the opposition.

Police numbers had been reduced and security remained low key after
Friday night passed peacefully at the Hlaing campus, witnesses said.

"There isn't much going on, but a few hundred students are sticking it
out and three might be another flare-up," a foreign diplomat here said.

"But there is no hint of confrontation. The police are standing guard
outside, the students are inside."

Students at Hlaing - numbering between several hundred and several
thousand according to different estimates-shouted anti-government slogans
during a peaceful protest on Thursday night, witnesses said earlier.

Authorities responded by formally closing the campus they added. Most of
the protesters were from outside Rangoon and were staying in dormitories
on the campus, which are now also to be closed.

The gates to campus were locked by police, with some 1,000 students
remaining inside.

Some 3000 police remained around the campus, but another Western diplomat
said it was a "not a big deal at the moment".

"They've got their shields and their truncheons but we haven't seen any
guns and their numbers aren't that big. I think the government wants to
play it peacefully."

The students were angered by arrangements for their courses, which have
only restarted in recent weeks after universities across the country were
closed following campus unrest in December 1996.

The latest stand-off came as United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
urged the Burmese authorities to take steps towards democracy and to hold
a dialogue with the main opposition leader, his spokesman said in New
York.

UN spokesman Fred Eckhard said that at a meeting with the Junta's foreign
minister on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Durban,
South Africa, Mr Annan"pressed him on the need for the democratic
liberalisation of Myanmar".

He also called for "a sustained and effective dialogue with Aung San Suu
Kyi," Mr Eckhard said.


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