Myanmar junta steps up attacks as o

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Myanmar junta steps up attacks as opposition group marks milestone

Sun 27 Sep 98 - 08:16 GMT 

YANGON, Sept 27 (AFP) - Myanmar's military government stepped up its offensive
against Aung San Suu Kyi's main pro-democracy opposition party Sunday as it
marked the 10th anniversary of its founding.

The state-controlled media carried commentaries and reports attacking the
National League for Democracy (NLD) party as illegal and working with foreign
backers to stir up "anarchy and unrest" in Myanmar.

Witnesses and the media said a crowd of some 20,000 people in the central
Myanmar city of Mandalay had packed a sports stadium Saturday, a day before
the party's anniversary, to protest against the opposition group.

The rally was organised by the ruling military and followed a similar event in
Yangon last week, residents said.

A commentary in the state-mouthpiece New Light of Myanmar newspaper Sunday
said speakers at the Mandalay demonstration charged the NLD with destabilising
the country.

"These people expressed their disgust at what is being done by the NLD and
their external cohorts to lay obstacles in the path of progress that the
current leadership has made together with the entire people."

About 20,000 people, mostly civil servants, packed a sports stadium east of
Yangon on Thursday in a rally to show their support for the junta and denounce
the NLD.

The rallies have been among the junta's most visible efforts to counter
mounting pressure from the NLD demanding the convening of a parliament elected
in 1990 and which the military has not allowed to sit.

The crowd in Yangon backed calls to protect "peace and stability" in the
military state, and denounced the pro-democracy opposition and other
"destructionists".

The NLD anniversary is expected to be marked by party faithful in a low-key
fashion.

"We have not been invited on this occasion, which is indicative of what scale
of ceremony it's going to be," one diplomat told AFP on Saturday.

Diplomats said it was possible the occasion would be used to further the
opposition's political agenda, including its demand for parliament to be
convened. But NLD leaders have remained tightlipped on their plans.

The party has said more than 1,000 members have been detained since the demand
for parliament was made in May.

Opposition groups, including the Thailand-based exiled government, said it is
the harshest crackdown on dissidents since the brutal supression of student
demonstrations by the military in 1988.

The New Light of Mayanmar denounced opposition claims that the call for a
parliament was backed by ethnic minorities which had formerly signed
ceasefires with the junta.

Myanmar's embassy in Washington earlier said the groups had "withdrawn all
statements that might be misconstrued as supporting the NLD's illegal move."

Exiled opposition groups have said the retractions were made under heavy
pressure and threats by the junta.

The NLD, founded shortly after the junta crushed a nascent student movement
and imposed martial law, proved an instant threat to the generals in power in
one form or another since 1962.

Leaders Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of national independence hero Aung San, and
ex-defence minister Tin Oo, who had been jailed for four years from 1976 for
failing to report an assassination plot against former dictator Ne Win,
quickly began attracting large crowds at rallies throughout Myanmar.

The junta reacted by placing them under house arrest in July 1989, less than a
year after Aung San Suu Kyi made her maiden political speech calling for
democratic reform and respect for human rights.

Tin Oo was subsequently given three years with hard labour.

Despite these setbacks, the NLD managed to win 392 of the 485 seats in the
fray in 1990.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the party's general secretary, was released from house
arrest in 1995, but her movements are still strictly controlled.

The NLD's latest move was the setting up of a parliamentary committee on
September 16, which it claims has the support of more than half the MPs
elected in 1990 to act as a de-facto parliament.

                                                                          ©AFP
1998

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