Police halt protest

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Police halt protest

19.2.98
Bangkok Post

MANILA, AFP

Police yesterday confiscated protest banners and kept pro-democracy
demonstrators away from a senior Burmese leader before a wreath-laying
ceremony at the monument of a Philippine national hero.

General Than Shwe waited at a nearby hotel until police cleared
demonstrators from Luneta Park where he later laid a wreath at the statue
of national hero Jose Rizal.

About a dozen members of the Free Burma Coalition carried black banners
reading "Respect Burmese People's Rights" across a boulevard about 100
metres away from the monument.

Police officers first tried to cover the banners with their bodies and then
ordered the protesters to leave, before finally confiscating the banners.
The demonstrators did not resist.

Edgar Bilayon, a member of a railway union that supports jailed Burmese
trade union leaders, appealed to the police to allow them to show the
banners to Than Shwe.

"It is enough that General Than Shwe sees us so that he can read (the
message) that there is a movement here in the Philippines that supports the
pro-democracy movement there in Burma," said Mr Bilayon, who wore a
traditional Burmese costume.

In Rangoon, the main Burmese opposition party announced that four of its
members were detained on February 9 and stopped from attending a gathering
at the home of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. One, Nan Khin Htway
Myint, was sentenced to two years in prison, it said.

A government spokesman in Rangoon said the announcement appeared timed "to
create embarrassment" during Than Shwe's visit to the Philippines.

Nan Khin Htway Myint was one of the successful National League for
Democracy candidates in parliamentary in elections in 1990. The opposition
overwhelmingly won the vote.