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THE PEOPLE OF BURM ASTILL LACK FREE



Subject: THE PEOPLE OF BURM ASTILL LACK FREEDOM




Media Release
January 4, 1999
                                    
                                    
        THE PEOPLE OF BURMA STILL LACK FREEDOM AT THE FIFTY FIRST
                  ANNIVERSARY OF BURMA INDEPENDENCE DAY


Today marks the fifty first anniversary of Burma Independence day
from the British colonial rule. Though the people of Burma still
lack basic freedom and have no influence over the development of
their country half a century after its independence. Burma is
still a land of growing oppression, poverty, injustice, and
isolation with five decades of civil war.

Burmese people are still unable to exercise their basic rights to
participate in the political process and are being denied most of
their fundamental rights by the military authority. On the
occasion of the fifty first anniversary of independence day,
there are more than 3,000 political activists and prisoners being
detained in the Burmese jails including 234 members of parliament
elected from the 1990 general election. 

"Burma got its independence and sovereignty from colonial rule in
1948 but what happened next? Majority of people are still being
denied their freedom during these years and only a handful of
people from the military and Ne Win's clique could consume the
fruits of its independence. Sovereignty of Burma is just a word
to give protection from international criticism and intervention
of the gross human rights violations of the military authority to
its own people",  Aung Thu Nyein, general secretary of the ABSDF
said.

"Burma need to change its constructed structure from the military
dominated society to pleural civil society. The struggle for
change is a "second independence struggle" as Daw Aung San Suu
Kyi mentioned and a painful process and still more need to
sacrifice for the establishment of freedom, justice and a
democratic society. But the ABSDF strongly believes that liberty
is near at hand."

The ABSDF pays respect to those who sacrificed during the
struggle of independence, national liberation and for a
democratic change on the occasion of the fifty first anniversary
of independence day and reaffirms to continue the struggle until
democracy and human rights prevail in Burma.

On the occasion of independence day, the ABSDF demands that the
military authority:


(1) Unconditionally and immediately releases all political        
    prisoners including prominent student leader Min Ko Naing,
(2) Allows the freedom to exercise rights of organization and     
    political parties,
(3) Declares a country-wide cease-fire and 
(4) Holds substantive dialogue immediately between the National   
    League for Democracy (NLD) and the military authority.

The ABSDF encourages the people of Burma to participate from the
basic form of individual defiance to wide mass participation in
the second independence struggle and urges the international
community to exert more pressure on the military authority for
democratic changes.


All Burma Students' Democratic Front (ABSDF)
For more information, please contact 01-3093846, 01-2539082