AFP : SPDC stages mass rally, claim

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Subject: AFP : SPDC stages mass rally, claiming NLD has terrorist links

Myanmar junta stages mass rally, claiming NLD has terrorist links

    YANGON, Oct 19 (AFP) - Myanmar's junta has staged a mass rally 
denouncing the opposition party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi 
for alleged links to terrorism, Yangon media reported Tuesday.  The rally 
in Myanmar's second city of Mandalay, 450 miles (720 kilometers) north of 
here, was attended by about 24,000 members of state sponsored 
organisations, official media said.
    "I would like to ask the government not to hold any dialogue with the 
persons who are at the level of terrorists and destructionists," medical 
superintendant Khin Win Swe told the crowd.   The rally against the 
National League for Democracy (NLD) took place Monday as United Nation's 
special envoy Alvaro de Soto ended a five-day mission to Myanmar aimed at 
encouraging political reform.
    A similar rally was held Friday, a day after De Soto's arrival, to 
condemn five anti-junta gunmen who held 38 people hostage at Myanmar's 
Bangkok embassy on October 1.  No one was hurt in the hostage drama which 
ended when the gunmen fled  to Myanmar's rugged eastern border on a Thai 
police helicopter.   Speakers at the latest mass protest in Mandalay called 
for the junta to "crush" the NLD, claiming it had links to the 
hostage-takers. "It (the NLD) is totally opposed to the gpvernment and the 
destructive group even supported the seizure of the Myanmar embassy in 
Bangkok," Myint Thein from the Mandalay education institute told the 
protestors.  The NLD has consistently rejected the use of force and 
strongly condemned the hostage-taking.  The pro-democracy party has been 
locked in a bitter political struggle with the junta since winning 1990 
elections, which Myanmar's military rulers ignored.

Thin Myat Thu (Thida)                                  Tel: + 47 22 414143
Senior Features Producer                           Fax: + 47 22 413929
Democratic Voice of Burma      http://www.communique.no/dvb