Myanmar students take exams as poli

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

                           Myanmar students take exams as police ring campus
                           12:50 a.m. Sep 07, 1998 Eastern

                           YANGON, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Ringed by riot police
after recent protests, students at a
                           Yangon campus sat for long-delayed final
examinations on Monday, officials and witnesses
                           said.

                           An official at the Yangon Institute of Technology
(YIT) said final term examinations for
                           first-, second- and third-year students started
at 8.30 a.m. (0200 GMT).

                           ``They are peacefully sitting their exams,'' the
official told Reuters.

                           Witnesses said dozens of riot policemen were
stationed at strategic points around the main
                           YIT campus and at the institute's Hlaing campus,
which houses about 1,000 students.

                           Hlaing has been shut off by riot police since
last Wednesday after hundreds of students
                           protested against the shortness of refresher
courses for the exams and against plans to
                           relocate undergraduate classes far from the
current northern Yangon campus, diplomats
                           said.

                           The final examinations at YIT have been delayed
since December 1996, when the campus
                           was closed along with others around the country
following student unrest. The latest
                           demonstrations were the biggest since then.

                           Universities throughout Myanmar have been closed
for most of the past 10 years since the
                           military crushed a student-led pro-democracy
uprising in 1988. The YIT campus reopened
                           last month for short refresher courses ahead of
the examinations.

                           Diplomats contacted in Yangon from Bangkok said
it was unclear how many of the students
                           from Hlaing had actually sat for the examination
on Monday morning.

                           ``The question is whether they were allowed to
and whether they were willing to,'' one
                           said.

                           A YIT official said transportation had been
arranged to take students from Hlaing to the
                           main YIT campus.

                           ``It's a bit early to know the exact number of
the students,'' he said. But almost all of them
                           are sitting the exam.''

                           A statement from the All Burma Students'
Democratic Front, the main group of Myanmar
                           student dissidents based in Thailand, said the
YIT students had set Monday as a deadline
                           for authorities to meet their demands, otherwise
they would take their protests onto the
                           streets.

                           It said their demands included postponement of
exams and the release of jailed student
                           leaders.

                           Diplomats said at the weekend that students were
apparently not being allowed out of the
                           Hlaing campus. One envoy said his embassy was
trying to check reports that riot police
                           had detained more than 100 students from the
institute since Wednesday.

                           The student protests have come at a time of
growing tension between the military
                           government and the main opposition party, the
National League for Democracy, led by
                           1991 Nobel Peace prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

                           The NLD has vowed to convene a ``People's
Parliament'' this month in recognition of its
                           landslide win in Myanmar's last general election
in 1990, which the military has refused to
                           recognise.

                           The government has warned the NLD could be
outlawed if it tries to convene parliament.