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UPI 5/28



Burmese opposition concludes congress
        
        RANGOON, May 28 (UPI) - Burma's leading opposition party, the
        National League for Democracy, or NLD, concluded its three-day
        congress Tuesday with the adoption resolutions calling for freeing
        all political prisoners and more political freedoms for rivals of
        the nation's ruling military junta.
        
           The party, known as NLD, also said it plans to continue striving
        for a genuine multiparty democracy in the Southeast Asian nation.
        
           Held in a specially built timber-and-thatch structure inside the
        compound of NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi's residence, the congress
        was attended by about 1,000 party members. A handful of them were
        among those elected to Parliament in the multiparty elections of
        1990.
        
           The NLD swept free elections on May 27, 1990, winning more than
        80 percent of the parliamentary seats. But the authoritarian State
        Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, refused to relinquish
        power until a new constitution was adopted and detained scores of
        elected members of Parliament and monks who protested its continued
        rule. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prize winner, was held for six years before
        being released last year.
        
           The resolutions are largely a reaffirmation of the NLD's demands
        and complaints to the military leaders, and of its stand on human
        rights issues. The resolution on political prisoners calls for early
        and unconditional release of all political prisoners, including NLD
        members, who were arrested days before congress was set to convene.
        A human rights declaration echoed one unanimously passed by the
        United Nations last year.
        
           The party also repeated its contention that the National
        Convention in its current form will be unable to produce a
        constitution acceptable to all the people of Burma, and again said
        it will not participate in the convention until it has held
        "satisfactory discussions" with authorities.
        
  
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