Burmese junta labels NLD leader a

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Politics 

      Burmese junta labels NLD
      leader a 'witch'

      RANGOON -- Burma's junta yesterday
      branded opposition leader Aung San Suu
      Kyi a ''witch'' as it held firm against her plan
      to convene a new parliament. 

      Although the daughter of independence
      hero Aung San, the official media continued
      to play on her marriage to Briton Michael
      Aris as evidence she was not committed to
      Burma. 

      ''Said will walk east, her words were
      sweet,'' said the latest poem published in
      the official English-language New Light of
      Myanmar. There have been a series of
      poems in the state-controlled press
      attacking the head of the National League
      for Democracy (NLD). 

      ''Took Westerner spouse, hard to believe,''
      added the verse. 

      ''Born in this land, Myanmar [Burma] blood. 

      ''Grew up in [the] West, blood mixed.'' 

      The influences of being married to a
      foreigner and living in another country had
      given her witchlike qualities and Aung San
      Suu Kyi was not worthy of being a Burmese
      national, the poem added. 

      ''Therefore witch, wily character,'' it said. 

      ''Our country, our land. You're unworthy,
      unacceptable. To your own land you return
      ... you go home, go home. 

      ''Witchlike she proceeds. Witch. 

      ''Alien witch's wiles, we won't accept.'' 

      Her father Aung San is widely revered by
      both the opposition and the junta. He was
      assassinated along with most of his
      fledgling cabinet in 1947, just months
      before the country became independent
      from Britain. 

      Residents said the capital remained calm
      yesterday but that anti-riot forces were
      conducting daily early morning exercises on
      a sports field at Yangon University, a
      traditional hotbed of unrest. 

      Security has been stepped up across
      Rangoon amid escalating political tensions
      in recent weeks, residents and foreign
      diplomats said, with riot police posted in
      twos and threes at intersections, bridges
      and strategic locations. 

      ''There has certainly been a gradual
      build-up,'' one Western diplomat said. 

      ''I would not say it is oppressive, more that it
      is a warning.'' 

      The latest developments came as junta
      First Secretary Lieutenant General Khin
      Nyunt, widely seen as second in command
      of the isolated state, warned ''appropriate
      measures'' would be taken against the
      opposition if its actions endangered public
      security. 

      ''In fact it had been long overdue,'' the New
      Light of Myanmar said of the meeting. 

      ''The NLD had been putting on the act,
      doing what it thought would provoke
      government action for its incitement to riot
      so that there would be social unrest and
      street violence, pushing the situation to the
      worst scenario.'' 

      The newspaper editorial poured scorn on
      the NLD's establishment of a committee in
      preparation for convening parliament and
      said that the junta, known as the State
      Peace and Development Council (SPDC),
      was moving towards democracy. 

      Agence France-Presse