Students:Burma More Repressive

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

 .c The Associated Press  

RANGOON, Burma (AP) - Pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi says Burma's
military has intensified its efforts to crush her political party with
threats, arrests and abductions. 

In addition to intimidating National League for Democracy members who refuse
to resign, the army two weeks ago abducted 12 party officials, including a
local deputy chairman whose body was found later by the side of the road,
Mrs. Suu Kyi told a news conference at the home of the party's vice chairman
Tuesday. 

Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent campaign for
democracy, called the military's actions ``crude, inhuman conduct.'' 

The NLD won a landslide victory in a 1990 general election but Burma's
military regime refused to cede power. The regime succeeded an earlier
dictatorship in 1988 and killed thousands of anti-government protesters. 

Suu Kyi was freed from house arrest in 1995, but the government has rejected
her calls for a political dialogue, twice prevented her party from holding a
congress and no longer allows her to speak in public. 

Suu Kyi said that her party chairman, Aung Shwe, had sent a letter to the
head of the ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council protesting ``the
lawless arrests'' of party members. 

The letter, sent to the SLORC's top leader, Gen. Than Shwe, said that in
Toungoo in Pegu state, north of Rangoon, about a dozen NLD members were taken
away by the army. 

She said the missing men, members of the local party organizational
committee, never returned. 

The deputy chairman who was killed was from the ethnic Karen minority group.
Karen National Union rebels, who have fought for more autonomy since 1949,
are on the verge of being crushed by a massive army offensive. 

Refugees fleeing to Thailand have accused soldiers of rape and random
executions. 

Suu Kyi's contacts with the news media and the public have become rare as the
regime has erected roadblocks around her lakeside compound. 

She said Burma's expected admission to the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations in July will only strengthen the ruling junta and prevent democratic
change. 

AP-NY-03-05-97 0725EST 

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