Junta 'should see opposition as pea

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

South China Morning Post

Saturday  July 11  1998

Burma 
Junta 'should see opposition as peaceful' 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok 
The junta should recognise that Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy (NLD) is a force for peace, an activist said yesterday.

"If the generals listened to the NLD's warnings they might think twice
about harassing and detaining party members," said Debbie Stothard,
co-ordinator of the Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma.

The regime has detained more than 50 party members who were elected to
Parliament in 1990, according to the exiled All Burma Students Democratic
Front.

Other MPs have been made to sign pledges that tie them to their home towns
by making them report to the local police station twice a day.

The Burmese government in exile, the National Coalition of the Union of
Burma, yesterday objected to the junta's "absurd" use of laws, which it
said were aimed at habitual criminals, to restrict the movement of elected
NLD MPs.

"Aung San Suu Kyi is trying to keep a lid on the people's resentment and
trying to keep people calm," Ms Stothard said.

Diplomats in Rangoon said the junta was worried that the NLD would try to
convene Parliament on its own if, as they almost certainly will, the
generals ignore the party's demand for Parliament to meet by August 21 as
constituted by the 1990 general election, won in a landslide by the NLD.

Earlier this week Rangoon claimed the party had "put on war paint and is
deliberately trying to create a head-on collision" with the authorities.

But Ms Stothard said that in the face of a rapid economic deterioration the
party leaders had - whenever they could - preached against violence or
hasty action.

"Yet every time Aung San Suu Kyi or the NLD does something, the military
overreacts. Of course it's scared, but we hope it comes to understand that
if it does nothing, it won't be able to suppress the people's anger
indefinitely," she said.