NEWS - Myanmar Accuses Suu Kyi of C

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Myanmar Accuses Suu Kyi of Creating Anarchy

            Reuters
            04-AUG-98

            YANGON, Aug 4 (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
travelling.

            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 organise 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 organise the protest or gathering,'' he told
Reuters.