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AP-Brit Activist Sentenced in Myanm



Subject: AP-Brit Activist Sentenced in Myanmar

Thursday September 2 7:13 AM ET

Brit Activist Sentenced in Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - A British activist was sentenced to 17 years in
prison after trying to smuggle anti-government literature into Myanmar, the
country's military regime said today.

James Rupert Russell Mawdsley, 26, was arrested Tuesday after crossing into
Myanmar at Tachilek, a trading town on the border with Thailand. It was his
third arrest in two years for making a personal bid to rally support against
the government.

Anti-government activists are calling for a mass uprising Sept. 9, or
9-9-99, a date seen as auspicious in this numerology obsessed country. The
government has acknowledged arresting nearly 40 people. Opposition groups
say the figure is much higher. Mawdsley is the only foreigner.

A government spokesman, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said a
five-year sentence imposed against Mawdsley last year for illegal entry,
then suspended when he was freed following three months in Yangon's
notorious Insein Prison, had been reinstated.

Mawdsley was convicted of the same offense in a summary trial Wednesday in
Tachilek and received another five years, plus seven more for violating a
publications act.

``The government of Myanmar deeply regrets having to take such actions
against Mr. James Mawdsley,'' the government spokesman said in a fax to news
agencies in Thailand.

``But his repeated breach of the same law and conditions agreed upon makes
it difficult for the government to show leniency this time ... ''

Mawdsley also holds Australian citizenship. Both the British and Australian
embassies are seeking consular access. He was being held in Keng Tung, a
remote northeastern city.

In London, Mawdsley's father said he was extremely worried.

Myanmar's state-controlled press has described Mawdsley as a ``mercenary
terrorist.''

The pamphlets he carried into Myanmar, formerly Burma, urged soldiers and
civil servants to disobey orders and work for democracy. It also appealed to
the regime to free all political prisoners and reopen the universities,
closed since protests in 1996.

There has been little sign that Myanmar's people are ready to follow urgings
by dissidents, mostly in exile in Thailand, and rise up next week. The
military killed thousands during failed street protests in 1988.

The military, which has ruled Myanmar since 1962, has been condemned by many
human rights organizations and Western governments for human rights abuses
and suppressing the pro-democracy movement led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung
San Suu Kyi.

Mawdsley, who says he has drawn inspiration for nonviolent struggle from Suu
Kyi and Indian resistance hero Mahatma Gandhi, was arrested in September
1997 after chaining himself to a fence in Yangon and shouting pro-democracy
slogans. He was immediately deported.

In April 1998, he was captured in the southern town of Moulmein while
distributing pamphlets. After three months in solitary confinement in
Insein, he was released on condition he never return.