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NEWS - New demonstration keeps the



New demonstration keeps the pressure on Myanmar junta

       Fri 04 Sep 98 - 12:33 GMT 

       YANGON, Sept 4 (AFP) - Myanmar students staged a fresh rally
against the country's junta as opposition forces maintained pressure
       on the military rulers, witnesses said Friday.

       Students at Hlaing campus -- numbering between several hundred
and several thousand according to different estimates -- shouted
       anti-government slogans during a peaceful protest Thursday night,
they added.

       Authorities responded by closing the campus, which largely serves
as a preparatory school for other tertiary institutions, they added.
       Most of the protestors were from outside Yangon and were staying
in dormitories on the campus, which are now to be closed.

       The gates to the campus were locked by police, with some 1,000
students remaining inside. No clashes were reported and there
       was not believed to have been any direct contact between security
forces and protestors.

       Some 300 police remained around the campus, but one western
diplomat said it was a "low-key security presence."

       "It's a watching brief," they added. "It's not a big deal at this
stage."

       Police were carrying batons and shields, but no firearms were in
sight.

       The students were angered by arrangements for their courses,
which have only restarted in recent weeks after universities across the
       country were closed following campus unrest in December 1996.

       Students were given only a few days of classes to prepare for
examinations, which at Hlaing are scheduled for September 7, in what
       foreign diplomats say is a bid to rid the system of those
involved in the 1996 unrest and restart the education process.

       No other incidents were reported in Yangon or elsewhere in the
country Friday.

       Political tensions are rising in Myanmar and the leading
opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) of Nobel peace laureate
       Aung San Suu Kyi has vowed to convene the parliament elected in
1990 but which has never been allowed to sit.

       The opposition won the 1990 polls by a landslide but the junta
has refused to relinquish power.

       Some 3,000 students shouting slogans against Myanmar's junta
staged a protest at Hlaing Wednesday as another estimated 800
       students chanted at the nearby Yangon Institute of Technology.
Both protests ended peacefully.

       Those demonstrations were the biggest since the 1996 unrest. Riot
police broke up a smaller protest outside Yangon University on
       August 25 and arrested dozens of people, according to witnesses.

       Another protest was staged later that day at Yangon Institute of
Technology, during which rocks were thrown and riot police
       mobilised.

       The junta meanwhile detained currency traders in a bid to bolster
the beleaguered kyat currency, which is at new lows amid a
       devastating regional economic crisis, foreign diplomats said.

       Some 40 currency dealers were rounded up amid fears that
escalating political tension could see the artifically pegged unit slip
       further, the diplomats added.

       "I think some of it is the crisis and some of it is the political
situation in Burma," one western diplomat said by phone, using the
former
       official name for Myanmar.

       "They've occasionally done this before, and the traders have
always been released without charge when things calm down."

       The kyat was trading at about 380 to the dollar on Yangon's black
market Friday, but earlier crashed through the 400 level in some
       parts of the country, residents said.

       The black market rate was around 150 to the dollar before Asia
became embroiled in an economic crisis last July. The official rate is
       six kyat to the dollar, but is almost totally ignored.

       The detained money changers are licensed by junta in a de facto
endorsement of the black market trade.

       Junta officials could not be immediately reached for comment.