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Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's
Subject: Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's public meetings.
Rangoon threatens to ban Suu Kyi's public meetings.
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Burma's military authorities stepped up the pressure on Ms Suu
Kyi yesterday, warning they could end the opposition leader's weekend
meet-the-public sessions which they said were meant to disrupt the rule
of law and economic order.
A governemnt statement carried in the State-run New Light of
Burma also said the junta had banned a scheduled National League for
Democracy congress this weekend because of fears of mass "street
disturbances".
Armed riot police and barricades blocked access to Ms Suu Kyi's
residence yesterday for the third day in a row.
They prevented the NLD from holding its congress and, for the
first time since she was freed from six years' house arrest last year,
kept the opposition leader from giving her usual weekend speeches.
Meanwhile, a statement from the NLD responded to an earlier
charge by the junta of collusion with the United States and asserted its
right to hold confernces without specials permission.
NLD chairman Mr Aung Shwe urged the authorities to immediately
release all party supporters detained in the reu-up to the three-day
congress that was to have begun on Friday.
"There is no foundation to the accusations made by the State
authorities that arrangements for the All Burma Congress of the National
League for Democracy were made in collusion with United States and other
foreign powers," Mr Shwe said.
The government statement says speeches by Ms Suu Kyi and her
fellow NLD leaders Mr Tin Oo and Mr Kyi Maung are aimed at "creating
direct confrontation with the Government".
The statement did not flatly say the weekend meetings would be
halted but it did give a long series of arguments against them and noted
that Interior Ministry and security officials had warned the NLD in JUne
that they "must no longer continue".
The party congress had been timed for the weekend to "create
street disturbances with the use of force of mass who would have
assembled at the roadside talks", the statement said.
[By a correspondent in Rangoon, AFP, 30 September 1996].
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