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CNN News on the current situation o



Subject: CNN News on the current situation of Burma.


			Burma releases detained student protesters
			******************************************

                     December 3, 1996
                      
                     RANGOON, Burma (CNN) -- Burma's military government said
                     it briefly held hundreds of students Tuesday after they 
		     staged night-long street protests in the capital Rangoon. 


                     More than 300 students were taken away just before sunrise 
		     in police trucks when they refused to disperse after a 
		     march through central Rangoon early on Tuesday. 

                     "We have the power to fight for our democracy,"students 
		     chanted prior to being taken into custody. 

                     Police said they felt the demonstration, the largest of 
		     its kind in several years, was a threat to stability. 

                     Suu Kyi's home blockaded Hours later, police reimposed a 
		     blockade of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's home to 
		     prevent her supporters from going to meet her. During a 
		     live telephone interview, Suu Kyi told CNN she was unable
		     to leave her home. 

                     The Nobel Peace Prize winner called the situation 
		     "unlawful confinement" and said she had no connection with
		     the student protesters. 

                     The government began barring access to Suu Kyi's home in
		     late September, just ahead of her National League for 
		     Democracy (NLD) party's aborted national congress. 
		     The NLD won a 1990 election victory but has been barred 
		     from taking power by the ruling State Law and Order 
	 	     Restoration Council (SLORC). 

                     The students were released after their papers were checked,
		     a SLORC spokesman said. "They were not detained nor did 
		     they face any charges. They were simply held briefly to 
		     sort out whether they were real students or infiltrators,
		     " he said. 

                     Previous protests led to violence
		     *********************************
			
                     The protests began Monday with a
                     sit-in by 1,500 students from
                     Rangoon University and the
                     Rangoon Institute of Technology
                     and stretched into the night. 

                     Their protest was aimed at police
                     authorities after another smaller
                     demonstration was broken up
                     violently in October. The government promised then 
		     that it would investigate reports of police brutality. 
		     but the students say nothing has been done. 

                     At one point overnight, when
                     marchers paused in front of the
                     Suli Pagoda -- Rangoon's holiest
                     shrine -- a student hoisted a
                     portrait of Gen. Aung San, Suu
                     Kyi's father. Later, they came to
                     the front gate of the U.S. Embassy. 

                     The demonstrations were some
                     of the largest since the 1988 pro-democracy 
		     uprising. Thousands were killed or imprisoned 
		     when the SLORC crushed the movement. 

                     There were no reports of violence in the latest 
		     protests against Burma's military regime. 

                     International criticism 
		     ***********************

                     The United States and other Western countries have  
		     accused the SLORC of widespread human rights abuses 
		     and have condemned its crackdown on the pro-democracy 
		     movement led by Suu Kyi. 

                     A student leader said earlier that the student 
		     protesters were not
                     linked to any political party and they had no intention 
		     of politicizing the protest. 

		     [CNN News, 3 December 1996].

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