NEWS - Exiled Myanmar students call

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Subject: NEWS - Exiled Myanmar students call for junta's "annihilation"

Thailand-Myanmar
   Exiled Myanmar students call for junta's "annihilation"
   ==
   
   BANGKOK, Aug 24 (AFP) Exiled students staged a rally outside
Myanmar's 
Bangkok embassy Tuesday, calling for the "annihilation" of the country's 
junta, witnesses said.
   Some 15 protesters wearing the red headbands of the student democracy 
movement chanted anti-junta slogans and waved banners in support of a
planned 
mass uprising on September 9.
   "The military dictatorship that has existed in many forms for decades
must 
be annihilated," said a statement handed out by the Burmese Students 
Association.
   August 8 this year marked the 11th anniversary of an uprising in
which 
hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators were gunned down by the army and
a 
junta took power from strongman General Ne Win.
   That anniversary passed peacefully, but dissident groups have said 
Myanmar's people have an "appointment" with September 9 to repeat the
events 
of 1988 and end the military's 37-year domination of politics.
   Myanmar's military rulers have lashed out at dissidents for waging a 
campaign of "disinformation" to create unrest on September 9 -- or
9/9/99 -- 
and rounded up dozens of opponents.
   Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has accused the ruling
junta of 
using the so called "four nines" campaign as a pretext to tighten its
grip 
over the country.
   The Nobel laureate said her opposition National League for Democracy
had 
not masterminded the four nines campaign, but said she would not abandon 
dissidents calling for a general uprising.
   ask-de/gw/kf