Lawlessness reported in Burmese Army

Press, 29 September 1988, Page 10

Lawlessness reported in Burmese Army

NZPA-Reuter Rangoon Burma’s military rulers appointed a Supreme Court and an Attorney General yesterday but residents and diplomats reported growing lawlessness or drunkenness among soldiers.

A leading opposition figure, Aung San Suu Kyi, meanwhile, called on foreign embassies in Rangoon to tell their Governments to denounce human rights abuses in Burma. Soldiers have been searching houses for antiGovernment leaders and literature since the Army seized power on September 18. Residents have reported that some have also been stealing valuables. “In front of your eyes, anything of value, money, gold, watches, they put into their pockets,” one said. “When they go out they ask the head of the household to sign a statement that they have behaved correctly and haven’t taken anything away.” Several Western diplomats reported seeing

drunken soldiers on patrol. Many soldiers were under the influence of alcohol and there was a large amount of rum on board Army vehicles, one diplomat said. Radio Rangoon, meanwhile, reported that the posts of Supreme Court justices and Attorney General would be filled by legalsystem administrators. The radio also said the authorities had started releasing students arrested since the Army takeover. Students have been at the heart of months of protests against a quarter century of militaristic socialist rule. The Army has never given a figure for the number of students arrested but a spokesman for the military Government told a news confer-

ence that 1107 people had been arrested for acts of violence and looting between September 18 and 26. He said 342 “unlawful and destructive elements” had been killed by Army gunfire and 219 wounded. Dissidents, doctors and diplomats have put the death toll in Rangoon since the takeover at closer to 1000 and say most of those killed were unarmed pro-democracy demonstrators. Brigadier Aung Gyi, General Tin Oo and Aung San Suu Kyi, daughter of independence hero, Aung San, named their opposition united front the League for Democracy on Tuesday and made Aung Gyi, once No. 2 to the former Burmese leader, Ne Win, chairman. Foreign embassies in

Rangoon received a letter on behalf of the League asking that the Burmese Government be denounced in opening speeches at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In a manifesto, the League called on workers to continue’ protest strikes and demanded that the Army stop using “brutal behaviour” and lift a curfew and a ban on public gatherings. The manifesto ignored a call from the military Government for opposition leaders to participate in general elections promised within three months. The radio news broadcast carried a brief announcement that a second political grouping, the Democracy Party, had been formed.