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Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwa



Subject: Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwarted.


                     Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwarted

		Armed police surround party leader's compound

                               May 27, 1997

		     RANGOON, Burma (CNN) -- Armed riot police surrounded 
		     the compound of Burmese
                     pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Tuesday to 
		     prevent her
                     supporters from commemorating a 1990 election 
		     victory the
                     country's military rulers refuse to recognize. 

                     More than 200 members of Suu Kyi's National League for
                     Democracy came to Rangoon for a two-day congress. 
		     But police
                     set up roadblocks around the compound, and plainclothes
                     intelligence officers turned back those who tried to 
		     approach it. 

                     No arrests were reported Tuesday. But NLD officials 
		     said more
                     than 300 people had been detained by the military in 
		     the days
                     leading up to Tuesday's meeting to prevent them from 
		     attending. A
                     government spokesman denied that any detentions had 
		     taken
                     place. 

                     Police on Tuesday also surrounded
                     the home of the party's vice
                     chairman, Tin Oo, and used barbed
                     wire barricades to seal off the
                     NLD's office. 

                     It was the second straight year that
                     the military regime took steps to
                     prevent a commemoration of the
                     anniversary of the 1990 election in
                     which the NLD swept 82 percent of the seats in Burma's
                     parliament. The government has refused to ratify 
		     those results or
                     convene that parliament. 


		    [CNN News, 27 May 1997].

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