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To: vikram!burmanet-l@xxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 14:04:33 +0000
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Subject: Suu Kyi escapes as junta goons refuse to pelt tomatoes
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Organization: Forum for Democracy and Human Rights

Suu Kyi escapes as junta goons refuse to pelt tomatoes

Bangkok, March 18: Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and 
her followers escaped a pelting with tomatoes at a public ceremony when 
the young men the Burmese authorities hired to do the job refused to carry=
 it out, 
Ms Suu Kyi said on Monday.

The incident took place at a memorial ceremony for former Prime 
Minister U Nu on the first anniversary of his death on February 14, 
Ms Suu Kyi wrote in her weekly column in the Mainichi Daily newspaper 
of Japan, seen in Bangkok today.

Relations between Burma=92s military government and Ms Suu Kyi 
have become increasingly acrimonious over the last several months, dashing=
 
hopes for a dialogue between the two sides since her release from six year=
s of 
house arrest last July.

The 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner was arrested in 1998 after leading 
a democracy uprising, in which the Army shot thousands of unarmed 
demonstrators. Chroniclers of the movement say the military planted people=
 
among the demonstrators to incite violence which the Army could use 
justification for opening fire.

Ms Suu Kyi has always advocated non-violence.

She said that some of the young men hired to pelt her with tomatoes 
informed her of the plan, which she said was the Union Solidarity and 
Development Association.

The USDA is ostensibly a government-sponsored welfare 
organization, but most observers say the military uses it as a political t=
ool 
and its members as shook troops at demonstrations.

Ms Suu Kyi said hundreds of USDA members gathered around 
a Toyota filled with crates of tomatoes outside the ceremony.

=93But nothing happened perhaps because those who had been sent 
to create trouble had been sent to create trouble had no stomach for 
the task=94, said 

END