Myanmar Opposition Plans Meeting

[RANGOONP@xxxxxxx]

Myanmar Opposition Plans Meeting

By DON PATHAN
 .c The Associated Press 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The party of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi
will meet Wednesday despite the arrests of some party members by Myanmar's
military regime, dissident groups said today. 

``It's difficult to say how many will attend the party congress,'' said Aung
Naing Oo of the All Burma Students Democratic Front. ``The military have
arrested some members from outer provinces with various charges.'' 

Myanmar's ruling state council has urged the National League for Democracy not
to hold the congress and denied reports that 16 members had been detained to
stop them from attending. 

``They have been requested and informed ... of the need and importance of
maintaining the prevailing peace, stability and national unity,'' a government
official said in a faxed statement. ``They have not been detained as
alleged.'' 

For the past three years, Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has
tried to hold a party congress at her home. But the meetings have been
frustrated by the detention of party activists. 

This year's congress would commemorate the anniversary of the party's victory
in 1990 elections. The military, which has ruled the country also known as
Burma since 1962, refused to allow the newly elected Parliament to convene. 

Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero Aung San, has spent most of the last
nine years under house arrest or other confinement. 

AP-NY-05-26-98 0846EDT