Burma Opponent Issues Appeal

[ausgeo@xxxxxxx]

05/29/1997 
Burma Opponent Issues Appeal 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- In a videotape smuggled out of Burma, pro-democracy 
leader Aung San Suu Kyi appealed to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations 
to begin talks with her party. 

Her plea, seen in Bangkok on Thursday, comes on the eve of a meeting in Kuala 
Lumpur of ASEAN foreign ministers to discuss Burma's membership. ASEAN is 
planning to admit Burma later this year, despite mounting pressure from 
Western governments to shun it because of the government's poor human rights 
record. 

The videotape was the first message from Suu Kyi to the outside world since 
Burma's military junta launched its latest crackdown last week to prevent a 
congress of her political party. 

At least 316 members of Suu Kyi's party who had planned to attend the congress 
were arrested, party leaders said. Armed riot police clad in helmets and flak 
jackets have surrounded the homes of Suu Kyi and other party leaders since 
Tuesday morning, and sealed her party's office with barbed wire. 

The congress had been scheduled to take place Tuesday and Wednesday in 
remembrance of 1990 national elections, in which the party won 82 percent of 
the seats in a parliament that Burma's military regime then refused to 
convene. 

The election result was a severe embarrassment to the regime, which came to 
power in 1988 while gunning down more than 3,000 democracy demonstrators. 

``If ASEAN is truly interested in constructive engagement, it should try to 
engage with both sides in Burma, with the (regime) as well as the democratic 
opposition,'' Suu Kyi said in the videotape. 

``ASEAN should be engaged with the National League for Democracy as well, 
because we are the party which was elected by the people in the democratic 
elections of 1990,'' she said. 

Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, said admitting Burma under the 
military regime would be a risk to ASEAN's stability and reputation, and that 
``people of Burma risk ... the possibility that admission into ASEAN will make 
(the regime) even more obdurate and oppressive than ever.'' 

The government has denied arresting anyone, but it made the same denial last 
year when it arrested 262 of Suu Kyi's supporters. Although most were released 
after a few weeks, more than two dozen were given long prison terms. 

ASEAN's foreign ministers are to meet Friday. They are expected to admit 
Burma, along with Cambodia and Laos, later this year.