SCMP-Students held for backing upri

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Subject: SCMP-Students held for backing uprising

South China Morning Post
Wednesday, September 1, 1999
THE MEKONG REGION

Students held for backing uprising
BURMA by REUTERS in Bangkok

Dissidents in exile said yesterday that the military regime had arrested six
high school students last week for distributing pamphlets calling on people
to join an anti-government uprising next Thursday.
The All Burma Students' Democratic Front said the six were arrested last
Friday in Rangoon.

Dissidents in exile say more than 150 people have been detained in the past
month over their call for an anti-government revolt on September 9 - the
so-called "four nines day".

Dissidents chose the day for its numerical significance after "four eights
day" - August 8, 1988 - when democracy activists launched an uprising which
was crushed by the military. Thousands were killed.

The Students' Democratic Front said authorities in Rangoon had tightened
security at schools and called an unscheduled two-week holiday for schools
and colleges from the start of September.

The group said last week that 29 students, most of high-school age, who took
part in an anti-government protest in the southern town of Mergui on August
12 had been charged under an emergency law and faced seven years' jail with
hard labour.

The Government has said it had arrested 36 people in connection with the
uprising call.

On Monday, the Government said the call for an uprising was an "exercise in
futility" and accused opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi of acting
recklessly in voicing support for the campaign.

"While there is no reason to doubt her protestation that her party did not
mastermind the four-nines campaign, she cannot be absolved of
responsibility," it said.

Ms Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won Burma's last
election in 1990 by a landslide but was never allowed to govern.

She was held under house arrest for six years.

Political analysts say the military is better-prepared for trouble than in
1988 and they doubt ordinary people will be willing to risk their lives
again in open street protests.