Events of November 1998-October 1999)..."The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) offered no signs during the year that fundamental change was on the horizon. The SPDC's standoff with the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) continued. No progress was made on ending forced labor. Counterinsurgency operations by the Burmese military in several ethnic minority areas, accompanied by extrajudicial executions, forced relocation, and other abuses, led to the displacement of thousands inside Burma and the flight of yet more refugees across the border into Thailand. In one of the few positive developments during the year, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reopened its office in Rangoon in May and was able to visit Burmese prisons on a regular basis. Bilateral and multilateral policies towards Burma remained largely unchanged during the year, with sanctions in place from much of the industrialized world. Various governments tried combinations of diplomatic carrots and economic sticks to improve human rights and encourage negotiations between the SPDC and the opposition, but none had succeeded by late October. Arrests and intimidation of supporters of the NLD continued, part of a campaign that began in August 1998 after the NLD announced its intention to convene a parliament in line with the 1990 election result. This was foiled by mass arrests, and the NLD subsequently established a ten-member Committee Representing People's Parliament (CRPP), a kind of parallel parliamentary authority whose creation was seen as a direct challenge to the government. Some sixty parliamentarians remained under detention while thousands of NLD registered voters were forced to resign their party membership..."