Myanmar opposition party says gover

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Myanmar opposition party says government detains 220 members 

                              The Associated Press
                           09/08/98 10:59 AM Eastern

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) -- Myanmar's military
government has detained 220 members of opposition leader
Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, the party said today. 

"The National League for Democracy calls for the
unconditional release of its members and strongly condemns
the arbitrary arrests by the authorities," the party said in a
statement. 

The military warned the party that convening Parliament on
its own, as it had said it might, would result in arrests. 

Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in 1990 elections,
but the military has never allowed Parliament to meet. The
party said today that 63 of those elected to Parliament had
been detained. 

The government indirectly confirmed the crackdown in a
statement Monday night, saying it had "invited" National
League for Democracy members to official guesthouses for
an exchange of views on the party's plans to convene
Parliament. 

The term "invited" is generally understood to be a
euphemism for "detained." The guesthouses have been used
in the past to detain dissidents. 

The league earlier reported the arrests of 110 of its
members, but tallies of detentions are slow because
communications are poor in Myanmar, also known as
Burma. 

Meanwhile, an exiled student opposition group said at least
12 Buddhist monks were arrested and three injured in
Mandalay, Myanmar's second-largest city, when police
broke up a National League for Democracy rally on Friday. 

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, in a statement
issued in Thailand, said 200 monks and 50 students took part
in the demonstration, shouting anti-military slogans and
distributing leaflets. 

The student group reported smaller demonstrations took
place the same day in several other cities in central
Myanmar but were not disturbed by police. 

The report could not be independently confirmed. The
government spokesman said he had not heard of any arrests
of monks in Mandalay or of a rally there. 

Suu Kyi, who won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize and was
under house arrest from 1989 to 1995, recently has stepped
up her campaign to bring democracy to Myanmar.