AFP-Junta show restraint amid unive

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Junta show restraint amid university unrest, diplomats say
Sun 06 Sep 98 - 08:31 GMT 

YANGON, Sept 6 (AFP) - Myanmar's junta has shown considerable restraint in
dealing with recent unrest at university campuses in the capital, diplomats
and observers said Sunday.

They said authorities were maintaining a low-key security presence outside
the Hlaing campus on the fifth consecutive day of student unrest there but
that Yangon remained quiet.

"Its been very quiet since the students started protesting. The authorities
have shown a lot of restraint in terms of handling this," one diplomat said
on condition of anonymity.

"The campus is still sealed off, and there is at least one truck load of
security there," the foreign envoy added. Diplomats said they were
encouraged by the fact the police appeared not to be carrying firearms.

But exiled students in neighbouring Thailand said in a statement Sunday
their counterparts in Yangon planned to leave the campus and demonstrate in
the streets if their demands were not met. 

"They have set September 7, 1998 as the last date to meet the demands,
otherwise they will go out on the streets," the All Burma Students'
Democratic Front said in a statement received in Bangkok.

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 Monday, and are demanding they be
postponed.

But observers and diplomats here said that they had not heard of any plans
to take to the streets.

They said that, while marching in the streets would raise tensions, it was
unlikely that the protesting students would be able to leave the campus to
demonstrate elsewhere.

"The gates are all well blocked by security, so unless they make plans with
the day students outside, the possiblitiy is almost zero," one observer in
the Myanmar capital said.

"Here, the situation remains entirely a student affair at this point and
the only thing the kids have been threatening to do is to refuse to sit for
the examinations," the observer said.

"Getting out on the streets would be a much more serious matter," the
observer added. 

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

Authorities responded by formally closing the campus, which largely serves
as a preparatory school for other tertiary institutions. Most of the
protestors were from outside Yangon and were staying in dormitories on the
campus.

The gates to the campus were locked by police, with some 1,000 students
remaining inside.

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

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

Some 3,000 students protested at Hlaing Wednesday while about 800 more
gathered at the nearby Yangon Institute of Technology. Both protests ended
peacefully.

Those protests were the biggest since the 1996 unrest when universities
were closed.