Reuters-FOCUS-Riot police seal off

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

FOCUS-Riot police seal off Yangon protest campus 
08:06 a.m. Sep 04, 1998 Eastern 

YANGON, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Truckloads of riot police blocked off a Yangon
college on Friday after hundreds of students protested again overnight
against plans to relocate their campus, witnesses said. 

Between 500 and 900 students took part in the protest at the Hlaing campus
of the Yangon Institute of Technology (YIT), diplomats contacted in Yangon
from Bangkok said. They said the demonstration appeared to have subsided by
Friday morning. 

A diplomat said his embassy was trying to confirm a report that at least
100 students had been detained since protests began at YIT on Wednesday. A
spokesman for the military government could not immediately be reached for
comment. 

Witnesses said some 200 helmeted riot police were stationed around the
college on Friday morning. Traffic was not allowed on a road through the
campus and diplomats said students were apparently not being allowed out. 

``They've blocked off the campus and sent along large numbers of riot
police,'' one diplomat said. 

The opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) called on the government
to resolve the protests peacefully. 

``The NLD...earnestly urges the authorities to make efforts to resolve
these peaceful demonstrations peacefully by understanding grievances and
just desires of the students without arresting or using violence against
them,'' it said. 

Protests this week at YIT have been the biggest since late 1996 and come at
a time of increased tension between the government and the NLD, which has
vowed to call a parliament this month. 

On Friday, Bohmu Aung, 88, one of six surviving leaders of Myanmar's
independence movement, said he had written to both the government and
opposition to urge them to hold urgent talks to resolve their standoff. 

One of the country's revered ``30 Comrades,'' he said he had made the
appeal in the name of 23 veteran politicians. 

Bohmu Aung has tried several times since being freed from three years
detention in 1992 to use his influence as a founder of the armed forces to
act as a bridge between opposition and government. 

However, his previous calls for dialogue have been dismissed by the
military and the state media has attacked him as an old troublemaker. 

The students have presented a series of demands to the authorities, but the
main issue had become a government plan to relocate classes of
undergraduate students up to four hours away from the current northern
Yangon site, diplomats said. 

They said the government's plan to split up the YIT campus was part of a
long-term scheme it began after violently suppressing a student-led
pro-democracy uprising in 1988. The plan was intended to ensure that large
numbers of students were not concentrated in urban areas, they said. 

The government has been building two new YIT campuses, one about 45 minutes
drive from downtown Yangon, and another about four hours drive from the
city, the diplomats said. 

Students had also complained that refresher courses ahead of exams being
held next week were too short. 

The government has kept the country's universities closed for most of the
past decade to prevent student unrest, but last month YIT reopened for the
first time since late 1996 to allow for the refresher courses ahead of
final examinations. 

Diplomats said the latest student protests had not been overtly political
and were not apparently connected to the NLD. 

However, on Wednesday students shouted for the downfall of the military
government and in protests last month at Yangon University, students
expressed support for the NLD.