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AFP-British captive slams Myanmar j



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Subject: AFP-British captive slams Myanmar junta

British captive slams Myanmar junta

BANGKOK, Sept 8 (AFP) - A British woman protestor arrested in Myanmar
accused Yangon's generals Wednesday of leading a "genocidal" regime and
claimed UK investors in the military-ruled state had "blood on their hands."
Rachel Goldwyn, 28, lambasted what she said was Myanmar's "brutal regime,"
in a statement prepared before she was detained Tuesday for singing
pro-democracy songs in a Yangon market.

"I want to tell the people of Burma (Myanmar) to be brave at this important
time, and to tell the generals they better start running," Goldwyn said in
the statement released by dissidents on the eve of a planned uprising.

"People exist without rights, all opposition to the junta is brutally
crushed...there is no freedom of movement, assembly or expression" the
statement read.

"I want the world and particularly the British people and government to see
this genocidal regime for what it is."

Goldwyn is being held by military intelligence after drawing a crowd of
around 300 people to her protest, the exiled All Burma Students Democratic
Front said.

Her detention came a week after British rights protestor James Mawdsley was
jailed for 17 years after being arrested in Myanmar for the second time in
three years.

British embassy officials told AFP Wednesday they were trying to gain access
to both Britons.

Goldwyn, a researcher for a Burmese student group, condemned British
business links to Myanmar, where Aung San Suu Kyi's democratic opposition is
locked in a bitter political battle with the military.

"Investing in or trading with Burma funds the brutal regime that commits
these atrocities. British companies have blood on their hands too," said the
statement, dated August 15.

Britain along with many other Western nations maintains a range of economic
and trade sanctions on Myanmar to punish what it says is the junta's
appalling human rights record.

News of Goldwyn's arrest Tuesday came as tension mounted ahead of a planned
uprising by dissidents against decades of military rule.

Dissidents hope civil unrest on Thursday, or 9/9/99, dubbed Four Nines Day,
will honour a student uprising on August 8, 1988, or 8/8/88, in which
hundreds of people were killed.

Planned action includes a general strike, civil disobedience and a boycott
of media controlled by the junta, which refuses to cede power to the
democratic opposition of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Authorities have warned of tough action against "subversives" who they claim
are in league with exiled dissidents and foreign powers.

Goldwyn, shortly due to start graduate study at London's School of Oriental
and African studies, said her "passion" for human rights was stirred while
working with Karenni refugees from Myanmar on the Thai border.

The BBC in London quoted Goldwyn's mother as saying the protestor had told
her parents she was going to Germany before leaving for Yangon.

"I am very proud of her, but I also desperately wish she hadn't done this,"
Dr Charmain Goldwyn was quoted as saying.

Mawdsley's father meanwhile has said he is very concerned for his son.

"My interpretation of this is that he is being tortured and they are
refusing to let diplomats see him simply because they don't want the western
world to have a view of what they are doing to him right now," David
Mawdsley said.

A British diplomat travelled to see Mawdsley, 26, in jail in northern Shan
state over the weekend but was refused access.