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Mizzima: Burmese protest in Delhi a



Mizzima News Group
http://linux.glen.org/hk/mizzima
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Burmese protest in Delhi against junta's continued control of state
power

New Delhi, May 27, 2000
Mizzima News Group

About a hundred Burmese dissidents held a protest rally this morning at
the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi in celebrating the 10th anniversary of
National League for Democracy's election win in their homeland. Ten
years ago today, the National League for Democracy led by Nobel Peace
Laureate Daw Aung San Suu Kyi got a landslide victory in the country's
general election which was supervised by the military regime. The NLD
won 392 of the 485 parliamentary seats but the military rulers continue
to refuse to keep their pre-election pledge to the Burmese people and
ignore the result.

The demonstrators shouting anti-junta slogans and holding posters
marched towards the Indian Parliament around 10:30 a.m. but blocked by
over hundred Delhi police in front of Parliament Police Station a few
meters away from Parliament. They then held a sit-in-rally at the same
place for an hour before they dispersed finally.

Mr. Mya Win, a Member of Parliament who recently escaped from Burma to
India spoke to the fellow demonstrators his experiences in jail. Mr.
Win, who was imprisoned for nine years for allegedly participating in
forming an exiled government in 1990, was elected with NLD ticket from
Irrawaddy Division, the rice bowl of Burma.

In a statement today, the pro-democracy activists denounced the ruling
military junta for detaining Dr. U Saw Mra Aung, Chairman of the
Parliament and U Aye Thar Aung, the General Secretary of the Committee
for Representing People's Parliament (CRPP).

NLD and its allied parties in August 1998 formed the CRPP to work on
behalf of the MPs-elect before the Parliament can actually convene.

According to Amnesty International, more than 1,000 political activists
were sent to prisons last month alone. 55 MPs-elect were incarcerated as
of March 2000 and five have died while in detention. Total 23 MPs are in
exile, including five in India.