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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.
Copyright 1996 United Press International. All rights reserved.