Aide:Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Hold P

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Subject: Aide:Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Hold Party Meeting 

Aide: Suu Kyi to Hold Party Meeting 

Thursday, May 22, 1997 

RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- Undaunted by the arrest of scores of her supporters, 
pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is determined to go ahead with a 
political congress this month, an aide said today. 

More than 100 members of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's political party have been 
arrested in just two of Burma's 14 provinces as the military regime conducts a 
nationwide sweep to prevent the meeting, the aide said on condition of 
anonymity. 

The May 27 meeting was meant to commemorate the 1990 national election in 
which Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 82 percent of the seats in a 
parliament the military refused to convene. 

The party members were detained in the Mandalay and Irrawaddy districts of 
northern Burma, and the arrest total was sure to rise as news from around the 
country trickled into Rangoon, the aide said. 

Burma's communications systems are primitive because of the country's economic 
and political isolation. 

Party members were approached by military officials over the weekend and asked 
not to attend the congress, said the aide. When they told authorities they 
intended to go to Rangoon anyway, they were arrested. 

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Suu Kyi's 
party wanted to stir trouble and create anti-government propaganda by staging 
a meeting, ``forcing the government to take strong measures against them.'' 

The official, in a written statement seen in Bangkok, Thailand, said that 
``the preventive measures the government is applying are not harsh enough to 
serve her propaganda interest, but there is no doubt that she will try to 
escalate and exploit the situation as much as possible.'' 

Diplomats who had recently seen Suu Kyi expressed concern for her health, 
saying she had lost a lot of weight and was looking tired. The aide said, 
however, that she had seen a doctor and was simply suffering from diahrrea. 

In May 1996, the military arrested 262 of Suu Kyi's supporters to prevent a 
similar congress. Most were released within two weeks, but about two dozen 
were held and eventually given long prison sentences. 

The United States, which slapped economic sanctions on Burma's regime in April 
for its repression of the democracy movement, called the detentions 
``perfidious and inhumane.'' 

Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group, said the regime 
seemed bent on totally destroying the country's peaceful democratic movement. 

But it was business as usual for Burma's neighbours, which turn a blind eye to 
human rights issues and are determined to admit the country to its regional 
grouping, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, in July. 

Vietnamese Communist Party leader Do Muoi arrived in Rangoon to a 21-gun 
salute today for a meeting with Burma's military leaders. 

ASEAN nations have criticised American economic sanctions and say only a 
policy of engaging the generals can moderate their behaviour. 

The military has ruled Burma since 1962. Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate and 
daughter of independence hero Aung San, was thrust into prominence by the 1988 
uprising against military rule that was crushed when troops killed thousands 
of protesters.