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>From The Japan Times 
October 7, 1995

SUU KYI LEAVES RANGOON TO VISIT BUDDHIST PRIEST

RANGOON (UPI-Kyodo) Myanmar's (Burma's) opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi paid her
respects to a revered Buddhist priest Thursday while on her first trip out of Rangoon since her release
from house arrest.

Sources close to her relatives said Suu Kyi, 50, left the Myanmarese (Burmese) capital early
Wednesday to pay homage to the presiding priest of the monastery on Thar-Myin-Nya Hill, in the
jungle 32 km from Pa-an and 160 km east of Rangoon.

The priest is believed by devotees to be an "arhat," or saint, who possesses supernatural spiritual
powers.

The Myanmarese sources said Suu Kyi, who was released July 10 from nearly six years of house
arrest, will return to Rangoon on Friday.

Suu Kyi has maintained a relatively low political profile since her release, giving speeches to crowds
of supporters who gather daily in front of her suburban Rangoon residence.

Myanmar's military government, meanwhile, has virtually ignored her in the official press, while
pressing ahead with the drafting of a new constitution that will guarantee the army's continued
dominant political role.

In an official notification issued Wednesday, the ruling junta said the 700-member national
constitutional convention, which has been in recess since April 8, will be reconvened on Nov. 28, a
month later than scheduled.

The notification, signed by Lt. Gen. Myo Nyunt, chairman of the National Convention Commission,
said the postponement was made in response to the wishes of delegates who want to attend agricultural
and religious activities coinciding with the end of the monsoon season. 

At its last session from March 29 to April 7, the convention took up the sensitive issue of creating self
- administered areas for minority races.

Convention delegates decided that only six of the country's 135 ethnic minority peoples have the
requisite population size and geographical concentrations to qualify for the status of self - administered
areas.

These ethnic groups are the Naga of the Sagaing Division and the Danu, Pa-oh, Palaung, Kokang and
Wa of the Shan State.

At previous sessions, the military-dominated convention ruled that persons who have lived for long
periods abroad or who are married to foreigners are banned from holding high-level government
positions.


Asahi Evening News
October 9, 2995

FORMER DICTATOR ABSENT FROM CEREMONY

The Associated Press

RANGOON, Burma-More than 200 university students gathered at democracy leader Aung San Suu
Kyi's lakeside home Sunday to pay respects to elder statesmen, including former dictator Ne Win and
members of the current military government, whom they had invited to attend.

Ne Win and his successors did not attend.

Fifty-five out of 92 senior politicians did attend the traditional ceremony to honor teachers, parents
and elders on the holiday called "Thadingyut" which marks the end of Buddhist Lent.

Invitations signed by university students requested the invitees to attend the ceremony at Suu Kyi's
home "without fail." The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner's name was not mentioned in the invitation.

         Maung Maung, a student representative, said that government leaders had informed them that it was
"too early to attend such a ceremony."

The reclusive 84-year-old Gen.  Ne Win has rarely been seen in public since he stepped down from
power.  During his 26 years in office until 1988 he cut Burma off from the rest of the world and
transformed it from one of the richest countries in Southeast Asia into one of the poorest in the world.

In his final months of power, as well as shortly after he stepped down, thousands of unarmed pro -
democracy demonstrators were slaughtered by the military in the streets of Rangoon and other major
Burmese cities.

Many Burmese believe Ne Win still controls the government, although government leaders deny it.

Since her release from six years of house arrest July 10, Suu Kyi has been pressing the government for
a dialogue on solving the nation's problems.

Speaking at the ceremony, Bohmu Aung, a close friend of Aung San, Burma's independence hero and
Sun Kyi's father, said that national unity could be achieved through negotiation.


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