Myanmar dissidents hail Britons' sa

[maye@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Subject: Myanmar dissidents hail Britons' sacrifice

"Myanmar dissidents hail Britons' sacrifice"

[ABC news.com, 18.9.99]

BANGKOK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Dissident exiles on Saturday  hailed as heroes
two Britons given long jail terms this month  for protesting against
military rule in Myanmar and said their  sacrifice would never be forgotten.

"We are very grateful to them...We honour them and we will  never forget
them," said Maung Maung Aye, general secretary of  the National Council of
the Union of Myanmar, an umbrella group  of dissidents based on the
Thai-Myanmar border.

"It's terrible that they have received such harsh  sentences," he told a
Bangkok news conference.

The two Britons, 28-year-old Rachel Goldwyn from London and  26-year-old
James Mawdsley from Lancashire, were jailed for  separate solo protests
earlier this month.

Goldwyn was sentenced to seven years with labour on Thursday  for
"endangering state security." She had tied herself to a  lamp post in
central Yangon on September 7 and shouted and sung  pro-democracy slogans.

Mawdsley, who also holds an Australian passport, was jailed  for 17 years
the previous week after crossing into the northeast  of the country at the
end of last month carrying pro-democracy  leaflets. It was his third arrest
in Myanmar.

On Saturday, a commentary in state-controlled newspapers in  Myanmar charged
that the two had been hired by dissident groups  in exile to make the
protests. It also said Goldwyn had  "brazenly challenged the government" in
a radio interview  before entering Myanmar.

The dissident council said the two had acted independently.

Myanmar's military does not tolerate dissent and has been  widely criticised
for rights abuses since taking direct power in  1988 by killing thousands to
crush a pro-democracy uprising.

It then ignored the last general election in 1990 when the  opposition
National League for Democracy won by a landslide. It  has since tried to
suppress dissent through arrests and  intimidation.