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AFP : DASSK warns frustration could



Subject: AFP : DASSK warns frustration could turn violent on Myanmar  junta

    Suu Kyi warns frustration could turn violent on Myanmar junta

    BANGKOK, Oct 7 (AFP) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has 
warned frustration within the ranks of democracy activists and the general 
population was building and could turn violent.   The comments by the 
National league for Democracy (NLD) leader come after gunmen, claiming to 
be pro-democracy students, last week stormed Yangon's embassy in Bangkok, 
taking hostages and demanding the junta open talks with the opposition.
    "I think we can say that resentment is growing all the time," she said 
in a video-taped interview on October 5, a transcript of which was sent to 
AFP here Thursday.
    "And will it explode into violence? That is a possibility. And of 
course we are concerned about this, we don't want change to come about 
through violence."
    The interview was conducted in Yangon by members of an activist group 
of non-government organisations and academics known as the Alternative 
Asean Network on Burma.  Aung San Suu Kyi repeated earlier NLD denials of 
involvement in the Bangkok hostage drama, but said she understood what had 
driven the gunmen to storm the embassy last Friday.
    "We understand why these young students felt that they had to do 
something like this. It's because of some sense of frustration, it's 
because they have been subjected to great injustice, it's because they want 
democracy to come quickly to Burma," she said.
    "We have to face this kind of situation from day to day in Burma," she 
added, referring to the regular detention of party members and officials by 
the ruling military.
    "But what we want to say to them (the student gunmen) is that what we 
are fighting is the use of arms to bring about political change."
    Five gunmen, claiming to be pro-democracy students, stormed Myanmar's 
embassy here last week, taking nearly 40 hostages, including diplomats, and 
holding them for more than 24-hours, before Thai authorities bowed to 
demands for an escape helicopter to the border.  In the interview Aung San 
Suu Kyi also expressed solidarity with the people of East Timor, comparing 
their sufferings with those of her own people.
    "What happened in East Timor is very similar to what happened in Burma 
(Myanmar) in 1990," she said.
    Pro-Jakarta militias went on a bloody ramage in East Timor after an 
August 30 poll in which the territory's population voted overwhelmingly for 
independence from Indonesia.
    "This is what happened in Burma. We had free and fair elections in 1990 
and the people voted for our party, the National league for Democracy," 
Aung San Suu Kyi said.
    "But because the military regime did not want to accept the reults 
 ...they have been trying to overturn it through violence and intimidation."
    Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD won the 1990 elections in a landslide, but the 
military refused to allow parliament to sit, launching a long-running 
campaign of repression against the party.   Aung San Suu Kyi described the 
junta's methods as "salami tactics," saying they had been cutting away at 
the opposition slice by slice, making international intervention less likely.
    "I think they (the international community) should understand that what 
has happened in Burma is no different from what has happened in East 
Timor," she said.
    "So we feel a great sense of empathy for the people of East Timor 
because we have suffered the same kinds of wrongs."
    A UN-mandated peacekeeping force began deploying in East Timor on 
September 20.  Aung San Suu Kyi said she had a great deal of admiration for 
former guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao, widely expected to become 
independent East Timor's first president.
    "I think he'll have to come and visit me in Burma, he seems to be freer 
than I am," she said. (AFP)