SCMP-Opposition says 33 students ar

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Subject: SCMP-Opposition says 33 students arrested in protest

South China Morning Post
Monday, August 16, 1999
BURMA

Opposition says 33 students arrested in protest
ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated at 3.26pm:
Exiles opposed to Burma's military regime claimed on Monday that 33 high
school students have been arrested after staging a protest in which they
chanted support for an uprising September 9.
There was no immediate comment from the Government, which has met similar
claims in recent weeks by calling them ''fabrications'' and a ''smear
campaign'' to incite unrest.

The opposition has urged Burma's people, who have lived under harsh military
rule since 1962, to rise up on what is considered to be an auspicious
numerological date, September 9, 1999, or 9-9-99.

But memories of the last uprising, launched August 8, 1988, or 8-8-88, run
deep. There is little sign that many people are ready to again face the guns
that killed an estimated 3,000 people 11 years ago.

The All Burma Students' Democratic Front, composed of veterans of the 1988
revolt, said Monday that 150 high school students marched in the streets
Thursday of Mergui, eastern Burma.

They demanded lower fees, the release of student prisoners held since a
protest march last year, and the right to establish a student union, the
ABSDF said.

The students also gave speeches on economic hardship, military oppression
and democratic reform and chanted for people to ''march ahead to 9-9-99''.

The ABSDF listed the names of 23 students, ranging in age from 14 to 23, it
said had been arrested and claimed there were 10 more for whom no names were
available.

Over the weekend, the movement claimed that 120 people had been arrested
nationwide over the past two weeks to prevent a 9-9-99 revolt from breaking
out. It was unclear if the Mergui students were part of the larger group.

The Government announced at a news conference on Friday that four people -
two ABSDF members and two mid-ranking members of the National League for
Democracy led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - had been arrested
for working to instigate the uprising.