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Riot Police Take up Positions as St
NOTE: These so-called riot-Police are the brutal Lon Htein that
ruthlessly beat, robbed and drowed protestors in 1988.
Riot Police Take up Positions as Students Protest in Myanmar
AP
02-SEP-98
YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Riot police took up positions
outside a
Yangon university today during a protest by nearly 500
students, the
biggest show of discontent this year against Myanmar's
military
regime.
The riot police, equipped with clubs and shields, stood by
as teachers
negotiated with the students to end the protest at the
Yangon Institute
of Technology. Gates to the campus were locked and the
students did
not try to reach the streets.
A spokesman for the government, in a fax to The Associated
Press in
Bangkok, Thailand, said there had been no arrests and that
school
authorities were handling the problem.
Meanwhile, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi met
diplomats in
Yangon, a move that could antagonize the government, which
feels that
hostile foreign nations are using the movement she leads to
destabilize the country.
There were no immediate details on the talks.
In a rare interview, Suu Kyi said Tuesday that the military
government
may use force to resolve its latest confrontation with the
opposition,
possibly banning her party.
``This government always believes in violence and the use of
force to
resolve problems,'' the Nobel Peace Prize laureate told
journalists.
``They never think of resolving problems through
negotiations, through
reasonable give and take.''
Suu Kyi, 53, who has spent most of the past decade under
house
arrest or close restriction, said that the opposition in
Myanmar, also
known as Burma, is more united than at any time since
abortive
elections in 1990.
Her party overwhelmingly won the elections, but the
military, which has
ruled since 1962, refused to honor the result. In the past
few weeks,
the NLD has threatened to finally convene the legislature on
its own.
The government has responded by threatening long prison
terms and
banning the party. Suu Kyi said both were ``quite possible''
and that
five members of the parliament had been detained in the past
two
weeks.
She accused the government of destroying the economy and
being
insincere in its expressed willingness to hold a dialogue
with the
opposition.