Reuters-Myanmar Detains 110 Over Pa

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Myanmar Detains 110 Over Parliament Vow 
10:16 a.m. Sep 07, 1998 Eastern 

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar's main opposition party said on Monday the
military government had detained 110 of its members in the past two days, a
move to thwart its plan to convene a ``People's Parliament'' this month. 



The National League for Democracy (NLD) said those detained included 50
members who won seats in Myanmar's last general election eight years ago --
a poll the party won by a landslide only to see the military ignore the
result. 



A spokesman for the government confirmed NLD members had been detained but
gave no figures. He said the action was to prevent the party calling
parliament, something that ``would not be permitted by any government in
the world.'' 



``I don't know how many (have been detained) but what is happening is that
the government is taking appropriate action to maintain and safeguard
national security,'' he told Reuters. 



``Most of them have been called in for questioning,'' he said. ``They have
stated they they are going to hold a national parliament and the government
is trying to take this action to maintain safeguards.'' 



He said NLD action would have derailed national reconciliation efforts as
well as stability and peace. 



``In order to avoid that from happening the Myanmar government will take
appropriate action if they convene parliament,'' he said when asked what
would happen to NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other top party officials
if they stuck to their vow. 



A statement from the NLD's Central Executive Committee said those detained
also included eight state and divisional organizers, 25 township
organizers, 24 youth members and three women's committee members. It said a
total of 18 were women. 



Diplomats in Yangon said the detentions would mean that the NLD, whose
ranks have already been decimated by years of arrests and harassment, would
not be able to gather more than a handful of elected members if it tried to
go ahead with its plan. 



``It was a matter of when rather than if they would take this sort of
action,'' one said. 



``This is the fairly standard harsh response we have come to expect and
means that if the NLD tries to go ahead and convene parliament there won't
be many elected representatives there. 



``I don't think the NLD was expecting to get more than 50 in Rangoon
(Yangon) before this. I'd be surprised if they get more than a handful now
and this may not be the last of it.'' 



Before the latest detentions, the opposition had said that of the 392 NLD
members who won seats in the 1990 election, 183 were either in jail,
stripped of their seats, forced into exile or dead. 



The NLD had also said that 97 of its members, including many MPs, had been
detained without trial since May. Diplomats say others are too ill to
travel to Yangon or otherwise restricted. 



On Monday morning riot police in the capital kept close watch as college
students, who staged their largest protests in years last week, sat
long-delayed final examinations. 



An official at Yangon Institute of Technology said 2,325 students sat the
first day of final term exams without incident. He said 25 ``hard-core''
students had sat them at a government institute five km (three miles) away,
again without incident. 



Dozens of riot police were stationed at strategic points around the main
YIT campus and at its Hlaing campus, which houses about 1,000 students. 



Hlaing has been shut off by police since last Wednesday after hundreds of
students protested against the shortness of refresher courses and plans to
relocate classes far from the current northern Yangon site, diplomats said.




The examinations at YIT have been delayed since December 1996, when the
campus was closed along with others around the country following student
unrest. 



Universities throughout Myanmar have been closed for most of the past 10
years since the military crushed a student-led pro-democracy uprising in
1988. The YIT campus reopened last month for the refresher courses and the
exams.