SCMP-Junta steps up blitz on opposi

[hlaing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

South China Morning Post
Wednesday  September 16  1998

Junta steps up blitz on opposition 
by William Barnes 

Determined to crush opponents of military rule, the Burmese Government has
arrested 81 more members of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy, the party said yesterday.

Monday's arrests took the number of government opponents rounded up since
May to at least 783, including 196 elected MPs, it said. The sweep is the
largest crackdown against democracy activists since the early 1990s.

Observers have said the regime is trying to stymie Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's
threat to convene parliament this month after failing to draw the military
into political negotiations.

The junta, in an allusion to the Monica Lewinsky scandal, yesterday accused
the Washington Post of trying to deflect attention from "the growing crisis
at home" by attacking the mass detentions in an editorial.

Burma's embassy in Washington said no one had been detained or charged.
They had merely been invited for talks at government guesthouses about "the
unlawful attempt of the party to unilaterally convene parliament".