Myanmar Law Groups Says 'Right to C

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Myanmar law group says opposition right to call "emergency" parliament
Thu 17 Sep 98 - 04:32 GMT
BANGKOK, Sept 17 (AFP) - A Myanmar law group said Thursday the National League
for
Democracy (NLD) opposition party was within its rights to call an "emergency"
sitting of
parliament in defiance of the junta's warnings.
The Burma Lawyers Council said the situation in Myanmar put the country in a
"state of
emergency" according to international law, and the convention of a people's
assembly was a
valid move which "would have full legal effect."
"If the People's Assembly were convened in Burma, the Burmese MPs would hold
full
authority. It is highly likely that this would be recognised by the people of
Burma," the council
said in a statement received here.
"Legislative resolutions made by the People's Assembly would have legal effect
in Burma."
Myanmar's main opposition party Wednesday announced the formation of a
10-member
"representative committee" to implement its decision to convene a parliament
of politicians
elected in the 1990 general elections.
The NLD under Aung San Suu Kyi won the elections in a landslide but the ruling
military
council has refused to recognise the result.
"The representative committee has been formed to represent all candidates who
won seats in
the 1990 general elections," an NLD statement said.
NLD chairman Aung Shwe was named head of the 10-member committee, of which
party
general secretary and Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi was a member.
The NLD took 382 of a possible 485 seats in the poll, but military authorities
have still to
acknowledge the result.
The ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) contends that a new
state
constitution needed to be put in place before handing over power which they
took in a 1988
coup.
According to the NLD's statement, the committee would carry out the mandate of
251 of the
parliamentarians remaining from the original of 485.
The latest move by the NLD came following unheeded calls for the military
authorities to
convene parliament as promised, the statement said.
"We shall go ahead with our decision to convene the parliament despite the
fact that the military
junta have been arresting our MPs as well as those of the ethnic minority
parties to prevent the
convening of such parliament," the NLD said.
It said more than 800 of its members, including 195 MPs have already been
arrested.
"It is very clear that the military authorities are doing their utmost to see
that parliament is not
convened," the NLD said, adding that political, economic and social
difficulties "can never be
solved by these wholesale arrests."
The statement said the committee's first meeting, held late Wednesday, "aopted
resolutions," but
it did not elaborate.
In a recent statement from a senior junta official said the opposition members
had not been
arrested and had merely been invited for a political discussion and were being
accommodated
in government guesthouses.