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AP: Burma Leader Calls for Action 0
- Subject: AP: Burma Leader Calls for Action 0
- From: Winston_Lee@xxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 08 Apr 1997 16:24:00
Subject: AP: Burma Leader Calls for Action 04/08/97
Burma Leader Calls for
Action
Tuesday, April 8, 1997 10:04 am EDT
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Burmese democracy leader
Aung
San Suu Kyi appealed in a smuggled videotape today
for
international intervention to protect her
followers from Burma's
military regime.
The tape, seen in Bangkok, was to be played today
before the
United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
The regime has denied a U.N. investigator on human
rights access
to the country. Suu Kyi has been under virtual
house arrest in
Rangoon since November and messages from her are
increasingly
rare.
``I put the political rights of the National
League for Democracy
and others working for democracy in Burma as the
most
important item on the agenda of the Human Rights
Commission,''
Suu Kyi said.
The tape was made before a parcel bomb exploded
Sunday at the
home of Lt. Gen. Tin Oo, a member of Burma's
ruling State Law
and Order Restoration Council. His eldest daughter
was killed,
but he escaped injury.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast.
The National
Council of the Union of Burma -- a Thailand-based
group of
dissident movements -- contended today that the
bomb ``could
only have been planted by persons with
high-security clearance.''
However, Burma said the bomb had been mailed from
Japan. In a
statement, the Burmese government said it
suspected that
Burmese dissidents were to blame.
Suu Kyi espouses political change only through
peaceful means,
for which she won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
She said in the tape that her party's rights were
of paramount
importance because the government already had
crushed all other
democratic political parties operating nationally
in Burma.
Her party won 82 percent of the vote in a 1990
national election
that the junta refused to honor. A U.N. General
Assembly
resolution that year urged Burma's authorities to
respect the
election results and institute democracy.
Suu Kyi urged the United Nations to see that the
resolution was
implemented and not to ``just regard it as a piece
of paper.''
Since May 1996, the military government has
launched a series of
crackdowns on Suu Kyi's party, arresting hundreds
and
sentencing many to long prison terms.
Several party members have been forced to resign,
Suu Kyi said.
The actions against her party, she said, show
``how far the
authorities are prepared to go to prevent
democracy from taking
root in Burma.''
Suu Kyi also urged the Thai government to stop
forcing Karen
refugees back to Burma and to allow the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees to help them.
More than 15,000 Karens have fled a recent Burmese
army
offensive, joining an estimated 70,000 refugees
from Burma
already living in Thailand. The Thai government
has denied forcing
anyone to return.
However, refugees, Thai villagers and some Thai
soldiers have
told The Associated Press that refugees have been
forced back
into Burma. The United States, the European Union,
the United
Nations and human rights groups have urged
Thailand to stop the
forced repatriations.
? Copyright 1997 The Associated Press
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