Rangoon Areas Put Under Martial Law

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31409, 30 June 1967, Page 11

Rangoon Areas Put Under Martial Law

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) RANGOON, June 29.

General Ne Win, chairman of Burma’s Revolutionary Council, last night imposed martial law in parts of Rangoon afteia Chinese Embassy official was stabbed to death by two Burmese, the Associated Press reported.

A terse Government broadcast said he had placed the city, ravaged by two days of anti-Chinese rioting, under military authority and declared martial law in four key districts. The order would become effective at midnight local time.

The official announcement said the two Burmese had climbed secretly over the

wall at the back of the Embassy this afternoon.

Earlier in the day, troops guarding the Embassy fired shots to disperse an angry mob of Burmese demonstrators as they began to storm the Embassy walls. “Three Injured”

Witnesses said they saw three people injured as they fled from the troops’ bullets.

The murder climaxed two days of anti-Chinese violence, which started at a Chinese school when Burmese clashed with Chinese who insisted on

wearing Mao Tse-tung badges in defiance of the authorities. The demonstrators at the Embassy had earlier hurled stones and flaming torches into the Embassy compound. China last night charged that the Embassy official was killed during a “frantic and barbarous” assault by Burmese “hooligans” on the Embassy. The official New China News Agency, monitored in Hong Kong, said Chinas Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Han Nien Lung, had summoned the Burmese Ambassador in Peking and lodged “the strongest protest” over the Incident

The agency named the dead man as Liu Yi.

Earlier tonight, Radio Peking reported that China had delivered a protest note to Burma about the antiChinese Incidents in Rangoon. In the centre of Rangoon today, troops had to fire shots into the air to disperse another mob which was trying to get into Chinatown.