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Bangkok Post News (19/9/98)



Decade unmarked in Rangoon


<italic>Junta ridicules opposition plan to convene parliament

</italic>

Ten year after the Burmese junta seized power and launched a bloody
crackdown on dissent, pro-democracy forces remain defiant and
international pressure for change is mounting.

The capital Rangoon was quiet yesterday on the 10th anniversary of the
"coup," but the opposition has said it plans to convene a parliament in
defiance of government warnings. 

Riot police were deployed at strategic locations around the city, as they
have been since Rangoon earlier this month experienced its biggest
anti-junta student protests since universities were closed almost two
years ago.

"They are dotted around sensitive places, but are fairly discreet," one
Western diplomat said.

Exile MPs from Noble peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's National League
for Democracy (NLD) party said Burma was "in a state of emergency" and
military rule was plunging the country deeper into chaos.

The junta lashed out at the NLD yesterday, ridiculing its plans to
convene a parliament and saying it had never issued any clear polices by
which it planned to govern the country.

"The NLD has never put forward any serious, specific ideas on the
structure of government, economic policy, counter-narcotics policy,
foreign policy or defrnse policy," an official statement said.

But the defiant opposition confirmed the NLD's intention to convene this
month the parliament elected in 1990 polls, which the NLD swept but the
military has refused to recognise.

"We are very clear about our commitment to the democratic movement and
the NLD's bid to have parliament convened," said NLD MP Tin Tut.

"Ten years after (the junta's) formation, 10 years after they massacred
thousands, and 10 years of utter deceit, nothing has changed," he said in
a statement from exile in Australia.

Burma's Bangkok-based government-in-exile yesterday called on
dissarisfied elements within the armed forces to join with the opposition
in its effort to convene the assembly.

"Now is the most appropriate time for members of the armed forces to
become involved in the effort," the National Coalition Government of the
Union of Burma (NCGUB) statement added.

The junta's anniversary comes a day after the exiled government said the
NLD's plan to convene parliament could split the military and called on
the international community to support the move.

The NCGUB said pressure from the opposition was creating serious cracks
within the armed forces which could lead to the collapse of the junta.

The NLD this week announced the formation of a 10-member representative
committee to convene the national assembly. The junta has meanwhile
rounded up hundreds of democracy advocates in recent days in an effort to
stymie the planned parliament.

Pro-democracy students who fled to Bangkok after the junta's 1988
takeover also issued a statement supporting the planned parliament, which
they decribed as "a direct challenge to the generals in Rangoon."

Diplomats in Rangoon played down the significance of the anniversary,
saying it may be celebrated as a victory by the military.


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