SCMP-Crowds flock to top activist

[tinkyi@xxxxxxx]

Saturday  February 13  1999

Burma

Crowds flock to top activist

AGENCIES in Rangoon
Hundreds of Rangoon's poor flocked to democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi's
headquarters yesterday as the ruling junta's leader used the Union Day
holiday to demand a patriotic drive to crush political opposition.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi handed out rice to the crowd at the National League for
Democracy office.

The Nobel laureate refrained from making an address to avoid provoking the
authorities.

Across the city at an official ceremony marking the 52nd anniversary of
Union Day, the junta's leader, General Than Shwe, called for the stamping
out of dissent.

In a clear reference to Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, he demanded an effort to "crush
destructionists from inside and outside the nation who are disturbing and
jeopardising the state, stability, peace and development".

The general accused the opposition of disrupting government efforts to
foster unity and prosperity.

Union Day marks the 52nd anniversary of the Treaty of Panglong, signed by Ms
Aung San Suu Kyi's father, Aung San.

The treaty, an agreement between the majority Burman population and minority
ethnic groups, paved the way for independence.


European diplomats in Rangoon said the release from jail of Ma Thida, a
friend of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi, was unlikely to convince the European Union
to allow Burma's participation in EU-Association of Southeast Asian Nations
talks.