[asia-apec 766] Re: Conference: Myanmar/Burma - Amnesty International News Release

[jkellock at amnesty.org]

News Service 194/98

AI INDEX: ASA 16/27/98
7 OCTOBER 1998

Arrest of 54 people increases deep divisions in Myanmar?s society

The arrest of 54 people -- revealed in a statement made today by Myanmar?s
military
authorities claiming that the peaceful opposition is involved in a
'conspiracy' to overthrow
the government -- is outrageous and will do nothing to heal the wounds
caused by 10 years
of terrible human rights violations, Amnesty International said today.

     "It is appalling that the State Peace and Development Council, SPDC,
has made these
tendentious claims against the peaceful opposition party, the National
League for Democracy
(NLD), meanwhile arbitrarily arresting dozens of people who are probably
prisoners of
conscience," the organization said. "The NLD has always called for peaceful
 political change
and dialogue with the military."

     The SPDC issued a 15-page statement, providing details of people
involved in a plot to
'incite unrest'.  However after reading the document Amnesty International
can find no evidence
that any of those named engaged in anything other than peaceful civil
disobedience in Myanmar.

     Amnesty International calls on the SPDC to release these people
immediately unless
they are tried fairly for recognizable criminal offences.  The organization
 is further concerned that
the 54 are at risk of torture, which is common in Myanmar?s detention
centres.  Political prisoners
held in Military Intelligence centres are often interrogated, severely
beaten, and deprived of sleep
and food.

BACKGROUND
The NLD, led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, called on the SPDC to convene the
parliament elected
in 1990 by 21 August 1998. When the deadline passed, the NLD said they
would convene it
themselves -- but before they could do so, the SPDC arrested hundreds of
NLD members-of-
parliament-elect and other activists.  These people remain in detention
along with hundreds of
students and others arrested in the last four months.

     According to the SPDC statement, young people and students have been
distributing
leaflets in Myanmar calling for the convening of the parliament and support
 for the NLD.  The
statement also claims that these groups have been supported financially by
Western organizations.

     The statement comes one day after Mary Robinson, the UN High
Commissioner for
Human Rights, and the European Union issued statements calling on the SPDC
to immediately
release all political prisoners in Myanmar and to begin a process of
national reconciliation.
ENDS.../