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Myanmar Opposition Figures Held



Myanmar Opposition Figures Held

 .c The Associated Press 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - The military government in neighboring Myanmar has
arrested 11 more leading opposition figures in a growing crackdown on Aung San
Suu Kyi's pro-democracy movement, an exiled opposition group said Thursday. 

The reported arrests follow a harshly worded government statement accusing Suu
Kyi, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991, of trying to plunge the country
into violence and suggesting legal steps would be justified to stop her. 

It accused Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy of ``putting on war-paint
and deliberately trying to create a head-on collision and confrontation with
the government.'' 

The threats came after Suu Kyi flouted an unofficial ban on traveling outside
the capital and staged a 24-hour standoff with police on a road north of
Yangon, a symbolic challenge to the authorities amid a wider campaign to
hasten civilian rule. 

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, a Thailand-based opposition group of
students who fled a bloody crackdown against an anti-government uprising in
1988, said Thursday the government was stepping up arrests. 

The targets are winners of parliamentary elections the military allowed in
1990. The vote was overwhelmingly won by the NLD and the military never
allowed the legislature to convene. The country has been in political deadlock
since. 

In May, Suu Kyi's embattled party for the first time set a deadline, Aug. 21,
for the government to convene the parliament. The date will fall amid the
anniversary period of the uprising 10 years ago. 

The government has responded by ordering all of the elected members not
already in jail or exile to report twice a day to local authorities,
apparently to stop them convening on their own. 

The ABSDF said Thursday that 11 new members have recently been detained for
violating the restrictions, bringing the total to more than 50. Two have been
sent to a prison labor camp, the ABSDF said. 

Among the 11 was Hla Hla Moe, a member whom Suu Kyi traveled out of Yangon on
Tuesday to see. 

Suu Kyi was stopped 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the capital and sat in
her car - along with NLD Chairman Aung Shwe, another party official and the
driver - for nearly 24 hours until Hla Hla Moe was brought to meet her. 

The military has ruled Myanmar, also known as Burma, since 1962. Suu Kyi,
daughter of independence hero Aung San, was vaulted to the leadership of the
pro-democracy forces in 1988 and has spent most of the past decade under house
arrest or tight restriction. 

Since the NLD's recent deadline was issued, the government has stepped up its
rhetoric and said the country could be plunged into chaos. But the security
forces control most aspects of life and any sign of dissent is usually stamped
out. 

``The NLD has clearly decided to take a hellish line of action for reasons of
party politics'' to create ``instability and chaos,'' the statement said. 

``The government has practiced maximum restraint in solving the problem but
deliberate creation of confrontation by the NLD to force the government to
violently react needs to be examined,'' it said.