Burmese military issues warning to

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Subject: Burmese military issues warning to Suu Kyi

Burmese military issues warning to Suu Kyi

      RANGOON, Burma (Reuter) - Burma's military government Tuesday suggested
democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was a traitor and said she and her
pro-democracy colleagues would be ``annihilited'' if they tried to
destabilize the country. 

    The state-run New Light of Myanmar and Mirror Daily newspapers, both
widely seen as mouthpieces of the ruling military, carried commentaries
indirectly comparing Suu Kyi with a reviled 19th century traitor who helped
British forces conquer Burma. 

    ``True young patriots are well aware of all your activities and they will
annihilate, holding hands with the people, anyone who makes the country
unstable,'' the newspaper commentary said. 

    ``If you really have a true desire to see Myanmar (Burma) develop, it is
essential not to do as you are directed by the imperialists,'' said the
commentary entiled ``Wither goes thou, Maung Ba Than. 

    More than 100 years ago, Maung Ba Than helped British troops capture
Mandalay, then the Burmese capital, leading to the imposition of British
colonial rule throughout Burma. 

    Suu Kyi, released from six years of house arrest in July, pulled her
National League for Democracy (NLD) party out of a government-organised
convention drawing up the guidelines of a new constitution last week, saying
the proceedings were undemocratic. 

    The NLD's boycott of the convention, which has been meeting
intermittently since January 1993, was the pro-democracy party's most
significant act of defiance since Suu Kyi's release. 

    The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner has made repeated calls for talks on
political reform but the ruling military body has yet to indicate it is
willing to begin talks. 

    In her regular weekend meetings with crowds of people who gather outside
her home, Suu Kyi has often called for patience and restraint in the campaign
to end 33 years of military rule. She has also rejected government
suggestions that she is trying to incite protestors to take to the streets. 

    Meanwhile a small group of students was prevented from holding a
remembrance ceremony on the site of the old students' union building at
Rangoon University on Tuesday , witnesses said. 

    Troops blew up the union building on July 8, 1962, four months after the
military first seized power in a coup. 

    The day before the building was destroyed, troops put down the first of a
long series of student protests against miltiary rule. 

    Witnesses said the students abandoned their attempt to hold a ceremony to
honor veteran student leaders after being told by authorities it was not
allowed. There were no reports of any arrests. 

    State newspapers reported on Tuesday several mass rallies by tens of
thousands of people in support of the government's constitutional convention.


    Rangoon-based diplomats as well as ordinary Burmese people have said in
the past such rallies are stage managed by the government and most
participants are coereced into going under threat of being fined or fired
from their jobs if they are state employees. REUTER 

12:09 12-05-95