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Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwa
Subject: Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwarted.
Pro-democracy meeting in Burma thwarted
Armed police surround party leader's compound
May 27, 1997
RANGOON, Burma (CNN) -- Armed riot police surrounded
the compound of Burmese
pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi Tuesday to
prevent her
supporters from commemorating a 1990 election
victory the
country's military rulers refuse to recognize.
More than 200 members of Suu Kyi's National League for
Democracy came to Rangoon for a two-day congress.
But police
set up roadblocks around the compound, and plainclothes
intelligence officers turned back those who tried to
approach it.
No arrests were reported Tuesday. But NLD officials
said more
than 300 people had been detained by the military in
the days
leading up to Tuesday's meeting to prevent them from
attending. A
government spokesman denied that any detentions had
taken
place.
Police on Tuesday also surrounded
the home of the party's vice
chairman, Tin Oo, and used barbed
wire barricades to seal off the
NLD's office.
It was the second straight year that
the military regime took steps to
prevent a commemoration of the
anniversary of the 1990 election in
which the NLD swept 82 percent of the seats in Burma's
parliament. The government has refused to ratify
those results or
convene that parliament.
[CNN News, 27 May 1997].
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