Burma Headline News #3

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___Burma Headline News___#3
Post By DBSO-U.S & Japan
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Agence France Presse, December  22, 1996 22:13 GMT

HEADLINE: 64 Burmese opposition members detained: party vice-chairman

DATELINE: RANGOON, Dec 22

   Sixty-four members of  Burma's  main opposition National League for Democracy
(NLD) were rounded up by military authorities following student demonstrations
this month, an NLD co-vice chairman told AFP Sunday.

   Tin Oo said party leader Aung San Suu Kyi was still under "virtual house
arrest" because of the blockade of her house and restrictions on her movement.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has not left her residence on University
Avenue for over two weeks, while a blockade of the road either side of her house
has been in place since the start of the month.

   Tin Oo said only 10 of the 64 NLD members picked up since December 3, when
the student demonstrations started, have been released.

   Others have been taken to Rangoon's notorious Insein jail or are being kept
at police and military intelligence detention centres, he said.

   He added that at least two party officials are known to have been sentenced
to terms of imprisonment of up to two years.

   kmt-mp/lk

   AFP

   RANGOON, Dec 22 (AFP) -  Burma's  military authorities rounded up 64 members
of Aung San Suu Kyi's opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) following
student demonstrations this month, a senior party official said Sunday.


   NLD co-vice-chairman Tin Oo told AFP that Aung San Suu Kyi was still under
"virtual house arrest" because of the blockade of her house and restrictions on
her movement.

   The Nobel Peace laureate has not left her residence on University Avenue for
over two weeks, while a blockade of the road either side of her house has been
in place since the start of the month.

   Tin Oo said that of the 64 NLD members picked up since December 3, when the
student demonstrations started, about 10 have since been released.

   Others have been taken to Rangoon's notorious Insein jail or are being kept
at police and military intelligence detention centres, he said.

   He added that at least two party officials are known to have been sentenced
to jail terms of up to two years.

   The ruling  Burma  junta has accused the NLD of fomenting the student
demonstrations, which were the most defiant street protests since the State Law
and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) took power in 1988.
Aung San Suu Kyi has denied any connection with the protests, but has said
she sympathises with the students' cause.

   Thousands of students took part in protests in Rangoon to demand the right to
establish a union and for the release of student prisoners in two weeks of
demonstrations -- some of which were broken up by riot police using batons.

   The protests have now subsided, after students were sent home and lessons
suspended at universities and high schools in Rangoon two weeks ago.

   Blockades manned by troops and police around campuses have now been lifted,
but nighttime patrols by soldiers still continue, witnesses said.

   In a signal of the apparent return to normality in Rangoon, authorities have
now rescheduled for December 30 the annual city marathon race, which was
postponed from its original date on December 14.

   Meanwhile Sunday, a subdued gathering of 150 faithful NLD supporters waited
for one hour at a weekend meeting place one kilometre east of Aung San Suu Kyi's
home, before dispersing peacefully.

   Observers said that there was no security presence and the gathering was
largely symbolic, since few expected the NLD leader to show and address her
supporters there as she had done in the past.

   Tin Oo said that Aung San Suu Kyi had invited senior NLD figures and their
families to her house Sunday, where they celebrated the 78th birthday of party
co-vice chairman Kyi Maung.

 ************************************
Copyright 1996 Associated Press, AP Online, December  22, 1996; Sunday 08:07
Eastern Time

HEADLINE:   Burma  Dissident Misses Meeting

DATELINE: RANGOON,  Burma

    For the fourth consecutive weekend, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
did not appear Sunday to address supporters who waited for her at an
intersection near her home.

    Burma's  military rulers have since the end of September intermittently
thrown up road blocks leading to her lakeside villa, thus preventing crowds from
gathering to hear her speeches.
About 300 supporters waited for more than an hour at the Goodliffe Junction,
1.2 miles from her blockaded home. In recent weeks, Suu Kyi has driven from her
house to briefly speak to supporters gathered at the intersection.

   ''Whether she comes to meet us or not, we will wait for her every week,''
said Ms. Khin Nu, 48, who said she had earlier regularly attended Suu Kyi's
weekend rallies.

   Authorities had earlier said that any meetings with supporters could only
take place inside Suu Kyi's compound. But the Nobel Peace Prize winner has
insisted that the ''spontaneous public rallies'' would be held outside her
villa.

   In recent weeks, the number of supporters and others who have gathered at the
junction have dwindled. On Sunday they left peacefully, one of them saying,
''See you next week.''

   Suu Kyi has complained of being ''wrongfully restrained'' from leaving her
home, where she spent six years under house arrest until being released in
mid-1995. 
   She was basically confined to her house again earlier this month as students
staged the biggest demonstrations since 1988, when a nationwide pro-democracy
was brutally suppressed by the military.
**********************************
 Agence France Presse, December  21, 1996 21:17 GMT

SECTION: International news


HEADLINE: Burmese authorities give green light to cancelled Rangoon marathon

DATELINE: BANGKOK, Dec 21

Burma's  military authorities late Saturday announced that Rangoon's annual
marathon -- cancelled last week because of student unrest in the capital --
would be run on a new date.

   State-run Radio Rangoon, monitored here, said the seventh annual
international marathon and the Rangoon mayor's cup mini marathon were now
scheduled for December 30. 
   The running of the marathon would cause the closing of several major roads in
the capital, it said.

   The race, originally planned on December 14, was called off after hundreds of
university students took to the streets of Rangoon to demand the right to form a
student union and the reslease of detained students.

   The allowed resumption such activity indicated that authorities want to show
that the situation in Rangoon has returned to normal, observers here said.

   However, tanks and armoured personnel carriers were still stationed at
strategic points around the capital.

   Soldiers and riot police stood guard near the city's university campuses
although classes remained suspended in Rangoon's universities and high schools.

   ***********************************************
HEADLINE: EU/ BURMA:  COMMISSION URGES GSP SUSPENSION IN PROTEST OVER FORCED
LABOUR
Sources Press Release, Lexis Nexis

    The European Commission used new powers granted under Council Regulation
(EC) 3281/94 for the first time on December 18 when it decided to recommend
suspending trade benefits for industrial products accorded by the EU to  Burma
(Myanmar) under the Generalised System of Preferences until the use of forced
labour in the country is ended. The international trade unions that had brought
this case before the Commission welcomed the decision, saying that the EU is
sending a clear message that its market is not open to countries which abuse the
human rights of their workers. The Commission proposal must still be approved by
the Council after consultation with the European Parliament before it can come

into force (see European Report No. 2184).

    The Commission took 11 months to investigate the complaint lodged by the
International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and the European Trade
Union Confederation (ETUC), which alleged that some 800,000 Burmese are involved
in various forms of forced labour which makes up to 10% of the country's total
gross national product. According to trade union figures,  Burma's  exports to
the EU are worth about ECU 60 million, two thirds of which were eligible for
substantial tariff reductions.

    After analysing the complaint, Commission services, working alongside
university specialists in international law and the Council's GSP Committee,
carried out a series of hearings of witnesses and experts and established their
conclusions in the absence of input from the Burmese Government, which had
declined to cooperate with the investigation or allow an on-site inquiry.
According to the Commission, the available facts confirmed the existence of
generalised forced labour in the country and thus justified the use of the GSP's
social provisions, which allow the EU to deny benefits to countries using forced
labour. The GSP is a unilateral trade policy instrument which aims to give
exports from developing countries preferential access to EU markets.

    "This is a welcome step which sends a clear message that privileged access
to European markets is not available to countries that grossly abuse human
rights at work", the ICFTU and the ETUC said in a statement. "Thousands of
Burmese have died after having been forcefully recruited by the army to serve as
porters", said ICFTU General Secretary Bill Jordan, who added that the West was
not entirely innocent in the treatment of the Burmese. "Others are found on
construction sites and railways and entire villages have been evacuated by
Government forces in connection with the construction of a gas pipeline by oil
giants, Total and Unocal."

    The trade unions also indicated that they intended to ask the EU to extend
its GSP suspension to  Burma's  agricultural exports, which are worth some ECU
15 million.
**********************************

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