Reuters-Myanmar dissidents hail Bri

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Subject: Reuters-Myanmar dissidents hail Britons' sacrifice 

Myanmar dissidents hail Britons' sacrifice
05:22 a.m. Sep 18, 1999 Eastern
BANGKOK, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Dissident exiles on Saturday hailed as heroes
two Britons given long jail terms this month for protesting against military
rule in Myanmar and said their sacrifice would never be forgotten.

``We are very grateful to them...We honour them and we will never forget
them,'' said Maung Maung Aye, general secretary of the National Council of
the Union of Myanmar, an umbrella group of dissidents based on the
Thai-Myanmar border.

``It's terrible that they have received such harsh sentences,'' he told a
Bangkok news conference.

The two Britons, 28-year-old Rachel Goldwyn from London and 26-year-old
James Mawdsley from Lancashire, were jailed for separate solo protests
earlier this month.

Goldwyn was sentenced to seven years with labour on Thursday for
``endangering state security.'' She had tied herself to a lamp post in
central Yangon on September 7 and shouted and sung pro-democracy slogans.

Mawdsley, who also holds an Australian passport, was jailed for 17 years the
previous week after crossing into the northeast of the country at the end of
last month carrying pro-democracy leaflets. It was his third arrest in
Myanmar.

On Saturday, a commentary in state-controlled newspapers in Myanmar charged
that the two had been hired by dissident groups in exile to make the
protests. It also said Goldwyn had ``brazenly challenged the government'' in
a radio interview before entering Myanmar.

The dissident council said the two had acted independently.

Myanmar's military does not tolerate dissent and has been widely criticised
for rights abuses since taking direct power in 1988 by killing thousands to
crush a pro-democracy uprising.

It then ignored the last general election in 1990 when the opposition
National League for Democracy won by a landslide. It has since tried to
suppress dissent through arrests and intimidation.