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Top Burmese general threatens to 'a
Subject: Top Burmese general threatens to 'annihilate' protesters.
Top Burmese general threatens to `annihilate' protesters
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December 12, 1996
4.22 pm EST (2122 GMT)
RANGOON, Burma (AP) -- In a chilling warning to student
protesters, a top
Burmese general has threatened to "annihilate'' anyone who
disrupts the
military government's work.
The remarks by Gen. Tin Oo were published Thursday in state-run
newspapers following six days of student protests in the
cities of Rangoon and
Mandalay.
Thousands of student demonstrators, demanding freedom, human
rights, an
end to police brutality and the right to form a student
union, have staged the
most serious show of civil dissent since the nationwide
democracy uprising of
1988, also sparked by student protests.
The protests have diminished over the last two days to brief,
hit-and-run style
demonstrations as authorities have blocked off universities
and other rallying
points such as the 1,000-year-old Sule Pagoda in downtown
Rangoon.
Sources close to the students who spoke on condition of
anonymity said
communications between the leaders and the rest of the
protesters had been
cut off almost entirely by the heavy security.
Some students loitered near the Sule Pagoda around noon
Thursday, but
seeing soldiers and military vehicles ringing the Buddhist
shrine, they
disappeared into the downtown crowds.
A 4-square-mile area of the capital is surrounded by
checkpoints, and many
people who live inside the area say they haven't gone to work
or shopped in
three days because they are afraid they won't be allowed to
return home.
Schools remained closed for the fourth consecutive day, and
democracy leader
Aung San Suu Kyi remained confined to her home by the
military.
Asked about the government's calls for stability, Suu Kyi
said in a telephone
interview: "They should prove stability is returning by
unblocking my road.''
She added that if the blockade of central Rangoon continues,
"it means that
they're not in control of the situation.''
The Nobel laureate said her husband, Oxford professor Michael
Aris, and their
two children, will not visit this Christmas as a protest of
the military junta's
tourism campaign. The government, which renamed the country
Myanmar,
has covered the capital with posters advertising Burma as a
travel destination.
State-run media said this week that Burma aims to have
300,000 visitors by
then -- well below targets announced earlier.
Authorities postponed an annual marathon planned for Thursday
in the
Burmese capital. The route would have passed through areas
now closed off to
the general public, and there had been fears that students
would try to disrupt
it.
Tin Oo is one of the four most-powerful generals in the
ruling junta that seized
power by violently crushing the 1988 uprising. More than
3,000 civilians were
gunned down by the military, thousands were jailed and
schools were closed
for three years.
The military government "will never allow the recurrence of
the 1988
disturbances and would annihilate any internal elements who
are trying to
disrupt the country,'' Tin Oo said.
Tin Oo is a battle-hardened veteran, having fought against
communist
insurgents and ethnic rebels along Burma's untamed frontiers.
He also is viewed as a junta hard-liner, having threatened to
annihilate Suu Kyi
and her allies in the past. In his most recent speech, he
indirectly suggested that
she is behind the student protests, a charge she and the
students have denied.
Burma was a British colony from 1824 until 1947, when Suu
Kyi's father,
Gen. Aung San, won the country's independence.
Aung San, who was assassinated in 1947, began his career as a
student leader,
and students have been carrying his portrait in the recent
protests.
A Suu Kyi deputy, Kyi Maung, said 28 members of her National
League party
had been detained after a demonstration Friday night. Four
were released
Wednesday morning and the other 24 were still being held, he
said.
One person -- a laundry worker -- was killed in the
demonstration, which was
broken up by a water cannon and baton charge, said Kyi Maung,
vice
chairman of the party.
Col. Hla Min, a military intelligence official, denied
Thursday that anyone had
died.
Maung said he believes international pressure has prevented
the government
from resorting to harsher tactics against the protesters.
[FOX, 12 Dec 1996]
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