SCMP-Junta can crush party but it c

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Subject: SCMP-Junta can crush party but it can't stop people supporting us,

says top activist
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Thursday  January 14  1999

Burma

Junta can crush party but it can't stop people supporting us, says top
activist

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok
Burma's military regime may be able to crush the nation's main opposition
party, but it cannot stop the public supporting it, says opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi.

The authorities have forced hundreds of National League for Democracy (NLD)
members to resign and closed many branch offices in recent weeks in what the
party has described as an "evil" campaign.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said breaking up the party's physical group did not
diminish its political power, it merely demonstrated how much the military
feared it.

"They [the junta] are reporting every day in the news how many NLD members
have resigned. Which country in the world would report daily about
resignations in a local political party and broadcast it as national news?"
she asked the BBC's Burmese language news service.

"They show how concerned the present military authorities are about the NLD.
That's it."

The party won 392 out of 485 seats in a 1990 general election that was
contested by - thanks to the military's encouragement - 93 political
parties.

The military ignored the election when its National Unity Party won only a
handful of seats.

The junta and its election commission later banned 83 parties for reasons
that included having too small a membership, too few leaders and fewer than
five branches.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi said that the latest crackdown against her party - which
continues a decade of harassment - was "illegal and unjustified".

Many observers fear the actions will ultimately be used to prevent the party
from participating properly in fresh elections designed to add legitimacy to
the military's grip on power.

The junta indicated last year that it might talk to NLD leaders - but not Ms
Aung San Suu Kyi.

The opposition responded provocatively by creating a Committee to Represent
a People's Parliament which it said would act until enough MPs were freed to
convene the national assembly.