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Saturday May 31, 2:00 PM
Myanmar's state-run press
criticises Aung San Suu Kyi
YANGON (AFP) -Myanmar's state-run press was openly
critical of democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for
Democracy (NLD) party in a departure from its usual practice.
It was the
first time such criticism has appeared in the military-ruled country's press
since UN-brokered talks began between the democracy leader and junta in October
2000. The talks have, however, failed to progress to a political dialogue as
planned.
The state newspapers complained of the NLD's "undemocratic
behaviour" including violence, which they said caused injuries to several local
people during Aung San Suu Kyi's current political trip to northern
Myanmar.
"Political parties need to be more understanding towards the
general public when they engage in party organisational activities, especially
during this time of transition to a democratic system," the Mirror newspaper
charged.
In line with government statements released in the past week
complaining of disruptions caused by the arrival of the NLD in various towns,
the daily alleged NLD behaviour was making locals
apprehensive.
"Authorities here have notified the party through their
spokesman U Lwin to avoid actions causing apprehension and fear among the local
populace and to be more understanding towards them," it said.
The NLD has
already complained of several clashes between Aung San Suu Kyi's entourage and
members of the junta-sponsored Union Solidarity Development Association (USDA)
during her month-long trip.
The junta-sponsored USDA is a social
organisation claiming some 19 million members, or nearly one third of Myanmar's
population. The junta has not acknowledged that the group is behind the
protests.
In one of the worst incidents, according to the NLD, a dozen
vehicles forced NLD supporters to flee for their lives as they waited along the
roadside to greet Aung San Suu Kyi in northern Sagaing.
Aung San Suu
Kyi's car was struck and a youth sitting beside her was injured by a missile
thrown from a catapult, her party said.
On Tuesday the junta told the NLD
it should accept that there are "those who support the NLD, there are also those
who do not".
UN special envoy Razali Ismail, who is credited with
brokering the secret talks between the two sides, is due to make his 10th visit
to Myanmar from June 6 in a bid to revive them.
The NLD won by a
landslide 1990 elections which have never been recognised by the junta.
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Major events in Myanmar's political history
YANGON, May 31 (AFP) - The Myanmar junta said Saturday that
democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been put under temporary arrest in the
country's north after violent clashes between democracy supporters and a
pro-junta group that left four dead.
Following are the major events in
the history of Myanmar's pro-democracy movement since the military crackdown of
1988.
1988:
Aug 8: Mass demonstrations demanding an end to the
military dictatorship in place since 1962 are staged across the country after
months of turmoil. Troops open fire on the crowds, leaving hundreds or thousands
dead according to different estimates.
Aug 12: Confronted by the mounting
chaos, General Sein Lwin quits the leadership after just 18 days in his post, to
be replaced by lawyer and writer Maung Maung.
Sept 18: Military takes charge
with the creation of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), which
authorises the creation of opposition parties after 26 years of monopoly rule by
the Burma Socialist Programme party.
Sept 30: National League for Democracy,
led by Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, is formed.
1989:
July 20: Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest.
1990:
May 27: NLD bags 392 out of 485 seats in parliamentary
elections. Junta refuses to recognise the results and hand over power.
1991:
Sept 15: Government in exile formed at Mannerplaw on the
Thai border.
Oct 14: Aung San Suu Kyi wins Nobel Peace Prize.
1992:
April 23: General Saw Maung resigns as head of SLORC and
is replaced by General Than Shwe. In succeeding months, the junta frees some 500
political prisoners.
Aug 24: Universities closed since the protests reopen.
Sept 26: Martial law in force since 1988 is lifted.
1993:
Jan 9: National convention for drafting a new constitution opens.
1994:
Sept/Oct: Talks held between Aung San Suu Kyi and junta
number one and three, Senior General Than Shwe and Lieutenant General Khin
Nyunt.
1995:
July 10: Aung San Suu Kyi is released after six
years under house arrest.
Nov 28: The NLD refuses to take part in a new
session of the national convention.
1996:
May 25: Some 10,000
supporters of Aung San Suu Kyi march in Yangon in the biggest demonstration
since 1990.
June 7: Junta declares opposition rallies "illegal."
Dec 9:
Student demonstrators demand setting up of unions and freeing of detained
comrades.
1997:
April 22: The United States bans all new
investment in Myanmar. On April 29, The European Union extends sanctions.
May 27: Hundreds of police prevent the holding of an NLD congress at Aung
San Suu Kyi's home.
July 23: Myanmar admitted into the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations.
Nov 15: The junta announces SLORC has been replaced
by the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).
1998:
June
24: Aung San Suu Kyi gives an ultimatum to the junta demanding that the
parliament elected in 1990 -- which has never met -- be convened by Aug 21.
July 24-30: The junta prevents Aung San Suu Kyi from visiting NLD members.
Her car is blocked 26 kilometres (nine miles) from Yangon, forcing her to return
home.
July 30: Aung San Suu Kyi declares she would keep defying the
authorities and encourages her supporters to keep up resistance.
Aug 8: The
anniversary of the 1988 unrest passes without incident. The following day, 18
foreigners are arrested in Yangon for distributing pro-democracy pamphlets and
are later deported.
Sept 16: NLD sets up the Committee Representing Peoples
Parliament, resulting in a renewed crackdown on dissent by the junta.
1999:
Sept 9: Efforts by exiled dissidents to spark another
uprising, dubbed the "Four Nines Movement," after the day, month and year, meet
with little success.
Oct 1: Dissident gunmen take over Myanmar embassy in
Bangkok, taking nearly 40 hostages. The crisis ends 24 hours later, after Thai
authorities bow to demands for a helicopter to the Thai-Myanmar border.
2000:
April: Malaysian diplomat Razali Ismail named new UN
envoy to Myanmar, charged with reinvigorating efforts to achieve national
reconciliation.
Aug 24: Aung San Suu Kyi sparks a stand-off with military
authorities by leaving Yangon for a meeting with the party's youth wing in the
outlying town of Kawhmu, in defiance of an order which confines her to the
capital.
Sept 2: Military authorities announce that Aung San Suu Kyi has
been "escorted" home and raid the NLD headquarters, placing senior members under
house arrest.
Sept 22: Aung San Suu Kyi is placed under house arrest again
after attempting to travel to the northern city of Mandalay on party business
with senior NLD members.
October: Landmark secret talks, brokered by UN
envoy Razali Ismail and aimed at national reconciliation, begin between Aung San
Suu Kyi and the junta.
2001:
May 6: Concern grows as Razali
has been denied permission to visit since January.
June 2: The UN envoy is
allowed back to Myanmar and meets with Aung San Suu Kyi and top members of the
ruling junta.
July 27: The European Union says its sanctions against
Myanmar's regime will stay in place until "definite and positive" progress
towards restoring democracy is made.
Aug 27: The junta lifts restrictions on
the president and vice-president of the NLD, Aung Shwe and Tin Oo, who had been
under virtual house arrest since September 2001.
Nov 11: Myanmar's junta
sacks seven ministers in the most significant reshuffle since SLORC was renamed
the SPDC in 1997. The shake-up is seen to be aimed at centralising power and
strengthening the junta's top three generals.
Dec 2: UN envoy Razali Ismail,
in his sixth visit to Myanmar, holds his longest meeting to date with Aung San
Suu Kyi.
2002:
Jan 17: US-based Human Rights Watch says signs
of a political thaw have emerged in Myanmar but by the end of 2001 little had
been achieved despite a flurry of diplomatic activity led by the United Nations.
February: Political prisoners begin being released in a steady stream of
small batches. A series of releases of women prisoners also begins, in line with
a request from the UN human rights envoy.
March 7: Four relatives of former
dictator Ne Win, his son-in-law and three grandsons, are arrested for attempting
to overthrow the regime in a military coup.
April 11: The US says it has
grown "impatient" over the slow pace of reconciliation talks between the junta
and Aung San Suu Kyi.
April 24: UN envoy Razali Ismail meets with democracy
leader Aung San Suu Kyi amid mounting pressure for the regime to release her
after 18 months under house arrest. Meanwhile, the currency crashes to a new
all-time low.
May 6: The junta announces that after 19 months, the house
arrest restrictions have been lifted and she is free to carry out political
activities.
June: Aung San Suu Kyi's first political trip since her release,
a week-long tour of the northern city of Mandalay, passes off peacefully.
However, suspicions soon begin to emerge that the fledgling political dialogue
has gone cold.
Aug 8: The opposition leader insists on the release of all
political prisoners in her country before sitting down for talks with the junta.
Dec 19: Aung San Suu Kyi's relationship with the junta begins to sour again
when she clashes with authorities who attempt to prevent her supporters from
meeting her on a trip to western Myanmar.
2003:
April 23: The
democracy leader complains publicly for the first time about the lack of
progress in national reconciliation talks.
May 31: The government puts Aung
San Suu Kyi under temporary arrest in the country's north after a violent clash
between her supporters and a pro-junta group leaves four dead.
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Saturday May 31, 6:35 PM
Junta seals Suu Kyi's party
headquarters
By Aung Hla Tun
YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar security officials have sealed
the headquarters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's party in the capital
amid mounting criticism of the pro-democracy icon by the country's ruling
military.
Sources close to the junta told Reuters that the Nobel
laureate, released from house arrest in May last year, was also being returned
by authorities to the capital on Sunday, cutting short a month-long tour of
northern Myanmar due to end on June 4.
Witnesses said the security
officials arrived at the National League for Democracy (NLD) headquarters in the
early afternoon on Saturday and put a put a large padlock on the door and
removed a party flag.
The keyhole on the lock was sealed and several
plainclothes officers were posted near the entrance of the building, they said.
The military government said on Friday it had told Suu Kyi to tone down
her public appearances on her northern tour, saying large crowds had caused
"traffic jams and commotion".
State-run media also reported scuffles
between NLD members and anti-Suu Kyi protesters. The reports said several people
were injured.
The NLD, which swept to a landslide victory in 1990
elections but was never allowed to rule, has often complained that Suu Kyi has
been harassed by government supporters on her trips outside Yangon.
The
junta said on Friday hundreds of NLD members from several towns had gathered in
Monywa, 600 km (370 miles) north of Yangon, just West of Mandalay to see Suu Kyi
on Thursday.
It said Suu Kyi toured the town for three hours in a convoy
of 16 cars and 150 motorcycles.
"Responsible government officials had to
warn the NLD to understand the people, avoid startling them, causing commotion
among them," the junta said in a statement faxed to Reuters.
The closure
of the NLD's headquarters came days before the scheduled arrival of a top U.N.
envoy, Razali Ismail, due to visit from June 6 to 10 in a bid to revive stalled
talks between the junta and opposition on the political future.
The
talks have been stalled in a confidence-building phase since they began in late
2000, after Suu Kyi was put under house arrest. The government has never
responded to Suu Kyi's calls for substantive dialogue on political change.
Suu Kyi also spent six years under house arrest from 1989 to 1995 after
emerging as the country's main opposition leader during a failed pro-democracy
uprising in 1988.
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Suu Kyi in 'protective custody' and party office closed
after clash
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) _ The military
government placed pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi into what it said was ``protective'' custody after four people were
killed and 50 injured in a clash between her supporters and thousands of
pro-junta protesters in northern Myanmar, it said Saturday.
The military
said she was unharmed and denied reports that her car had been shot at. It said
it had also closed her party's headquarters and had rounded up key party members
``for their own security.''
It was unclear if Suu Kyi had agreed to be
held as there was no way for reporters to contact the pro-democracy leader, who
was freed last year after 19 months under house arrest.
Her release in
May 2001 had raised hopes of an end to Myanmar's long political stalemate. But
Friday's bloodshed, which followed weeks of rising tensions, appeared to shatter
any illusions that her party and the country's military rulers could soon
overcome their differences and negotiate a return to civilian rule.
Brig. Than Tun, a spokesman for the military government, said the
conflict erupted late Friday near the town of Dipeyin, about 640 kilometers (400
miles) north of Yangon. He accused Suu Kyi of triggering the violence with
``inflammatory speeches'' that were critical of the regime.
Suu Kyi had
been on a monthlong political tour of northern Myanmar before the clash.
Than Tun said Suu Kyi and 19 members of her National League for
Democracy party, including party vice chairman Tin Oo, had been taken into
``protective custody.'' He did not elaborate.
``For their own security
they are now under temporary protective custody'' in the nearby town of Ye-U,
Than Tun told a news conference.
Than Tun said the Yangon headquarters
of Suu Kyi's NLD _ which won 1990 general elections but was barred by the
military from taking power _ had been temporarily closed and that some leaders
of the party had been put under house arrest.
Suu Kyi, who won the 1991
Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful struggle for democracy, was making her
seventh such trip to the provinces since being freed last May from house arrest.
Than Tun said it was too soon to say when Suu Kyi would be returned to
Yangon, but that he did not think the incident would disrupt the national
reconciliation process between Suu Kyi and the military regime, which began in
October 2000 and has made little progress.
Suu Kyi had been expected to
return Wednesday, two days before the scheduled arrival of special U.N. envoy
Razali Ismail on a visit aimed at rekindling the reconciliation process which he
helped initiate.
Than Tun said the clash began after Suu Kyi's motorcade
of 15 cars and about 100 motorcycles entered Dipeyin, where they were met by an
estimated 5,000 anti-NLD protesters waiting in the streets.
A scuffle
broke out when the motorcade tried to pass through the crowd, which escalated
into a larger fight that lasted about two hours, until police intervened and
stopped the violence, in which four people died and 50 were injured, he said.
In Yangon, witnesses said on condition of anonymity that about 10
plainclothes police officers had entered the NLD headquarters before sealing the
keyhole of a lock on the front gate and tying a rope around it.
The
witnesses said the officers then took photographs of the locked entrance. About
20 police officers were posted outside the residence of NLD spokesman U Lwin,
they said.
Two NLD party flags, customarily flown beside a Myanmar state
flag above the party headquarters, had been taken down by late Saturday, they
said.
Sources in the northern city of Mandalay said on condition of
anonymity that the local NLD office had also been closed. It was not immediately
known whether authorities were responsible for the closure.
Tension
between the military government and the opposition has risen in recent weeks.
The government has issued statements accusing Suu Kyi's supporters of
physically assaulting ``peaceful'' protesters and causing public panic during
her current upcountry tour. The claims have been echoed by the state media.
The reports follow complaints by Suu Kyi's party that a pro-junta group
has been intimidating her supporters and had threatened to run over people
lining the road waiting to greet her near Mandalay last Sunday.
The
party also said the group had hurled a brick that hit her car, but did not hurt
Suu Kyi.
The military has ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, for 40
years. The current junta came to power in 1988 after crushing a pro-democracy
movement.
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Short
Battle News
5 SPDC troops were killed and 8 wounded
Sent:
Saturday, May 31, 2003 3:54 PM
Subject: Short Battle
News
Report from Bn 103
On 26-5-03 at 1045 hours,
the KNLA Bn 103 troops from the GHQ ambushed SPDC IB 299, Column-1 troops, near
Kwee-da-Oot, a place about 30 Km to the south of Myawaddy, in Karen State. In
the ambush, 5 SPDC troops were killed and 8 wounded. Among the SPDC troops
dead were 3 corporals and among the wounded was the battalion commander
Major Myint Win. There was no casualty on the KNLA side.
Source:
KNU Department of Information
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Townspeople ordered to make the sidewalks of Burmese
town
Narinjara News
Sittwe,31 May 03: In a bid
to beautify the town of Sittwe, the capital of the western Burmese state of
Rakhine, the Municipality have ordered the townspeople to construct of their own
all the sidewalks of the town, a resident of Ohdan Quarter said to our
correspondent.
The official order was issued in the first week of May and
urged all the townspeople to construct the piece of the sidewalk in front of
their own houses since the municipality had no funds to complete the
construction or repair works.
The roads so far included in the
construction work are: Main Road, School Road, Chinbyan Road, U Ottama Road,
Rice Mills Road, and Mayu Road.
Non-compliance of the order would involve
harsh penalties, warned the official statement.
In 1988 when the country
was ruled by the predecessor of the present junta, SLORC, the townspeople who
could not afford to roof their houses with corrugated iron sheets in place of
the traditional nipa palm thatch were forced to leave the town and relocated in
suburbs, far away from the downtown
district.