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NEWS - Myanmar Universities Slowly



Subject: NEWS - Myanmar Universities Slowly Reopen

Myanmar Universities Slowly Reopen

 .c The Associated Press

 YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - Engineering students in Myanmar began returning
to classes this week, three years after the military regime closed all
universities to quell political protests.

Authorities have taken the precaution of moving the university classes
away from traditional campuses - the focal points of student unrest in
the capital.

Universities, hotbeds of activism since the days of British colonial
rule, have been open a total of only 30 months since 1988, when the
current generation of generals came to power after crushing an uprising
against a quarter-century of military rule.

The government's economics czar, Brig. Gen. David Abel, told foreign
reporters that classes at universities and colleges were being reopened
gradually and all would be holding classes by May. He said medical and
dental institutes and technical colleges were also open.

Third- and fourth-year engineering students from the capital began
studies Monday at newly-opened Yangon Technology University in
Hlaingtharyar, 10 miles from downtown Yangon. No unrest was reported.

``Though this new campus is far from my house, I am so excited to return
to classes,'' said Thu Thu. She said it took 40 minutes to get to the
campus from her house downtown.

Other classes of the institute remain suspended. First- and second-year
engineering classes were expected to resume in early 2000.

The government says relocating campuses is for student convenience.
Students outside Yangon will study in Prome, 150 miles north of the
capital, and those in upper Myanmar will study in Mandalay, the
second-biggest city in this Southeast Asian nation, also known as Burma.

Yangon Technology University is the new name for Yangon Institute of
Technology, whose old campus in the capital used to be a center for
student demonstrations, including protests that triggered the failed
1988 uprising.

Along with other colleges in Myanmar, it was last closed Dec. 9, 1996,
following protests against police handling of a quarrel between students
and some restaurant workers.

The protests had quickly taken on a political edge, and the generals
accused Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate and leader of Myanmar's
embattled democracy movement, of organizing them. She denied it, saying
national grievances were too widespread for her to control them all.

Suu Kyi and her party, the National League for Democracy, have been
undercut in the past three years by the forced closure of party branches
and the refusal of the government to open a dialogue, despite pressure
from economic sanctions.

AP-NY-12-29-99 0216EST