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9/18 Protest in Tokyo



Mainichi Daily News, Thursday, September 19, 1996

BURMESE ACTIVISTS RALLY IN TOKYO

By Demian McLean
Staff Writer

	About 60 Burmese activists marched through the streets of Tokyo Wednesday
afternoon, pumping their fists in the air and shouting slogans that called
for an end to eight years of human rights abuses and military rule in the
country now called Myanmar.
	The march began in Gotanda Minami Park with a mock re-enactment of the
bloody military coup in 1988, and culminated with a visit to the Myanmar
Embassy, where activists carrying Burmese flags delivered a list of demands
for the military junta, including the release of all political prisoners and
an opening of dialogue between the current government and Burmese Nobel
laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
	Protesters particularly decried Japanese and other Southeast Asian
countries' support for Myanmar's military government, which has been
repeatedly castigated since 1988 by Amnesty International and other human
rights organizations.  Marchers particularly took issue with Japan providing
Official Development Assistance to Burma.
	"We're trying to show the Japanese people and government the real situation
in Burma," said Aung Thu, a leader of the Burma Youth Volunteer Association
and an organizer of the march.  "People are still suffering -- there's
torture and there's forced labor," he said.
	"The Japanese people think that if they send more ODA, it'll help develop
the country," he said, "Instead, it's going to the military," he said,
pointing to Myanmar's swelling military's ranks, which he said today number
475,000 soldiers, up from 175,000 soldiers eight years ago.
	At the Myanmar Embassy gate, marchers stuffed a giant envelope through the
mail slot addressed to Gen. Thwan Shwe, leader of the military junta,
containing a list of the demands.
	Inside, embassy guards watched from their security booths, and other
watched from a high wall with a telephoto lens, snapping photos of marchers
as they passed.