SCMP-108 arrested as junta lashes o

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South China Morning Post
Thursday  September 10  1998

108 arrested as junta lashes out at critics 



Flying the flag: democracy activists shout slogans outside the Burmese
Embassy in Bangkok, demanding the opening of parliament and the release of
a student arrested last month. Reuters photo 


WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok and Reuters in Rangoon 
The opposition said last night that another 108 members had been arrested
as international condemnation of the detentions increased and the junta
lashed out at its critics.



The National League for Democracy said the detentions brought the number
held in a crackdown that began at the weekend to 328.



The junta has confirmed it had detained NLD members over opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi's vow to call a "people's parliament" this month, but it
has not given numbers. The party said eight of the 108 held were MPs
elected in 1990 to a parliament the junta has refused to convene.



On Tuesday, it said 220 of its members had been detained, including 63
elected representatives, since the weekend.



Yesterday it said that in all, 187 people who won seats in 1990 had been
detained since May 27, along with 334 party organisers.



The NLD said it had called on the junta to meet its representatives to
discuss the detentions and work out a solution, but the authorities had not
responded.



The junta said it would stick to its goals despite efforts of
"neo-colonialists" to dominate the country.



"The neo-colonialists and their lackeys are using different ways and means
to dominate Myanmar [Burma]," yesterday's New Light of Myanmar newspaper
quoted Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, a senior member of the junta, as
saying.



"However much destructive elements cause disturbances, embargoes and
destructive acts the [Government] will strive for the realisation of the
national goal that has been set," he said.



The Government has come under fire from the United States, Britain and
Germany and international human rights groups for the detentions.



The United States said it was looking for ways to lean on the junta to
persuade it to talk to the opposition.



Amnesty International sharply condemned the arrests - particularly of the
84-year-old chairman of the Rakhine League for Democracy, Thakin Khin
Nyunt.



The authorities in Rangoon have temporarily shut down a number of factories
and warned workers they face the sack if they attempt to join any protests,
according to sources in Bangkok. About 500 students were continuing the
largest anti-military demonstration for two years at Rangoon University's
Hlaing campus, they added.