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Burma says traitors becoming ``terr



Subject: Burma says traitors becoming ``terrorists'' 

Burma says traitors becoming ``terrorists'' 
01:38 a.m. Apr 30, 1997 Eastern 

RANGOON, April 30 (Reuter) - Burma's army chief of staff said traitors
within the country are
turning into ``terrorists'' with foreign backing, official media reported on
Wednesday. 

Lieutenant General Tin Oo, also Secretary Two of the ruling State Law and
Order Restoration
Council (SLORC), was speaking to farmers on Tuesday. 

``There are still internal axe-handles who are pushing the nation to become
a minion while saying
they love it,'' Tin Oo was reported as saying. 

``Similarly, there are also big nations using pressure to try and interfere
in the internal affairs of the
small nations to make them their disciples.'' 

Tin Oo and other top leaders in the military government regularly refer to
Nobel Peace laurerate
Aung San Suu Kyi and her opposition movement as ``axe handles'' or traitors
and say they are
``lackeys'' or ``minions'' of the West. 

``Relying on alien nations for their survival as a last straw, these
internal traitors are gradually
becoming terrorists,'' Tin Oo said. 

Tin Oo made the comments a week after Washington imposed economic sanctions
on Burma,
banning all new U.S. investment in the country in protest against reports of
human rights violations
and repression of the democracy movement led by Suu Kyi. 

Suu Kyi was one of the most vocal proponents of sanctions. 

Tin Oo, who has repeatedly urged people to ``annihilate'' the destructive
elements in the country,
was the apparent target of a bomb attack earlier this month. 

A bomb, which the government said was sent from Japan by anti-Burmese
groups, exploded at Tin
Oo's house on April 6 and killed his eldest daughter. 

Burma has been rocked by unrest over recent months, with rare student
demonstrations in
December followed by a bomb blast at a Buddhist shrine on December 25. 

In mid-March, religious strife erupted between Buddhist monks and Moslems
and the government
imposed curfews and other restrictions.