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Reuters : Myanmar accuses Suu Kyi o



Myanmar accuses Suu Kyi of creating anarchy 
07:33 a.m. Aug 04, 1998 Eastern 

By Aung Hla Tun 

YANGON, Myanmar (Reuters) - Myanmar's military government accused
opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Tuesday of trying to foment anarchy
with her marathon car sit-in. 

``Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) party,
despite chanting democracy slogans, in reality have been engaged all along
in inciting unrest,'' one state-owned Myanmar-language newspapers said on
Tuesday. 

Security personnel acting on behalf of Myanmar's ruling State Peace and
Development Council (SPDC) forcibly ended a six-day car protest by Suu Kyi
last Wednesday and took her back to her Yangon home. 

Suu Kyi had been stopped at a bridge near a village outside Yangon on July
24 and prevented from driving to the western township of Pathein to meet
supporters. She was told to return to the capital but refused to budge. 

Sources in her National League for Democracy (NLD) said she became
dehydrated and weak during the ordeal. 

Myanmar newspapers, the main mouthpiece for the government, said her
marathon car protest was designed to draw attention to her demand that the
government convene a parliament by August 21 made up of members elected in
polls in May 1990. 

Suu Kyi's NLD won a landslide victory in those polls but the result was
ignored by the military. 

``The real purpose of her recent trips outside Yangon is to plan protests
and demonstrations in these regions in support of her ultimatum that the
government convene a parliament,'' another Myanmar-language newspaper said.


The Nobel Peace Prize winner, who was under house arrest for six years
until mid-1995, has been stopped several times in recent weeks while
attempting to visit supporters outside the capital, Yangon. 

Suu Kyi has said she will try to venture out of Yangon again once she has
recuperated from her latest protest, but the government has tightened its
control of movement in and out of her house and is likely to try to prevent
her from traveling. 

The newspapers said Suu Kyi hoped to agitate ahead of the 10-year
anniversary of a pro-democracy uprising on August 8, which was bloodily
suppressed by the military and resulted in scores of deaths, hundreds of
wounded and thousands of arrests. 

``The systematic plans have been made to create 1988-style anarchy
involving the people into the unrest once the students spark it,'' one
commentary said. 

The papers said all measures were needed to prevent anarchy developing as
it did 10 years ago. 

``The state and the entire people will act decisively to prevent whatever
peril from within or outside the country, which will mar building of a
peaceful, modern future nation,'' said another newspaper. 

``Democracy cannot be built on the road,'' it added. 

The exiled Myanmar political activist group, the All Burma Students
Democratic Front (ABSDF), said they did not anticipate violence in Yangon
during the anniversary next Saturday but planned protests outside Myanmar. 

``The overseas Myanmar will organize rallies in Japan, the United States,
Australia, Thailand and elsewhere to mark the 10th anniversary of the
crackdown, but I don't think the opposition will do anything in Yangon,''
Aung Nai Oo, ABSDF foreign affairs chief, told Reuters by telephone from
the Thai-Myanmar border. 

A Yangon-based diplomat agreed: 

``The opposition made no move to mark the anniversary of the bloody coup in
past years and since the government has total control over the situation, I
don't think the NLD will be able to organize the protest or gathering,'' he
told Reuters.