AP 20th July

[moe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Paris, Tuesday, July 20, 1999
Burma Activist Called a Traitor On Solemn Day

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The Associated Press
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RANGOON - Wrapped in black for mourning, the beleaguered pro-democracy
leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi paid tribute to her father on the 52d
anniversary of his assassination Monday while the military regime attacked
her as a traitor.
For the third-straight Martyrs' Day holiday, official newspapers
conspicuously put aside a tradition of publishing a special page on the life
of General Aung San, her father and the hero of Burma's struggle for
independence from Britain.

The official press - the only kind allowed - instead attacked Daw Aung San
Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, as a traitor who should be
driven out of the country.

Martyrs' Day commemorates the assassination of General Aung San and six
other ministers who were machine-gunned during a cabinet meeting on July 19,
1947.

General Aung San was the leader of the movement against British rule and
founder of the national army that now persecutes his daughter.

In the only event of the year during which Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is allowed
to take part in official ceremonies, she arrived at the Martyrs' Mausoleum
at the foot of Rangoon's gilded Shwedagon Pagoda in a black sedan.

Dressed in a traditional black longyi, or sarong, a white jacket and black
shawl, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, 54, bowed in front of her father's tomb and set
down three baskets of purple and white orchids. She then knelt and paid her
respects.

Later, she arrived at headquarters of her party, the National League for
Democracy, where 400 supporters chanted, ''Long Live Daw Aung San Suu Kyi!''
She did not speak, but Tin Oo, the party's deputy chairman, read a nine-page
statement urging the military to engage the party in dialogue.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and the government are engaged in a bitter struggle
over the country's future. The National League for Democracy overwhelmingly
won elections permitted in 1990, but the military never let the Parliament
meet.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was freed from six years of house arrest in 1995.



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