AFP-Aung San Suu Kyi maintains stan (r)

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Aung San Suu Kyi maintains stand-off with Myanmar junta
Sun 23 Aug 98 - 05:51 GMT 

YANGON, Aug 23 (AFP) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi began
Sunday the 12th consecutive day of a stand-off with the country's junta
which ignored both her protest and her party's announcement it would
convene its own parliament, foreign diplomats here said.

The Nobel peace laureate was on a rural bridge in a minibus where she has
remained since being blocked from travelling to meet provincial supporters.

The capital remained calm with no increased visible security presence, they
added.

There has been no official reaction to the Friday announcement by Aung San
Su Kyi's National League for Democracy that it would convene the parliament
elected in 1990 but never allowed to sit, effectively forming a parallel
government.

The NLD-led opposition won the 1990 polls by a landslide but the junta has
refused to relinquish power.

Exiled Myanmar opposition groups, however, have called for a campaign of
mass civil disobedience and expressed full support for the NLD in its bid
to covene parliament.

Truckloads of troops have been deployed late at night at strategic
locations this week in what residents said was an apparent bid to
discourage any form of protest.

"It really is quiet," said one western diplomat. "It's the quietest weekend
in weeks, but that could of course just be the calm before the storm."

In Bangkok, some 30 exiled Myanmar students maintained their vigil outside
Yangon's embassy in a protest now underway for two weeks.