Civil servants ‘held, sacked in Burma’

Press, 12 October 1988, Page 10

Civil servants ‘held, sacked in Burma’

NZPA-Reuter Bangkok Hundreds of Burmese civil servants have been arrested or sacked as the authorities consolidate power three weeks after staging a bloody military coup, diplomats and Opposition figures said yesterday. They also said Opposition parties set up to contest promised elections were being harassed by Army personnel to stop them recruiting new members. The sources, contacted by telephone in Rangoon, said the purge involved high-ranking Government workers accused of supporting pro-democracy demonstrations and strikes which sparked the September 18 coup. “In the last week more than 1000 have been arrested or sacked in Rangoon. A lot of them are director-generals which means the highest civil servant rank below the political level,” said one Western diplomat. They included the director-generals of communications and of ports, and the medical director and director of the electricity corporation of the

north-eastern city of Taunggyi, which saw some of the bloodiest clashes.

A top pilot of the State airline, Burma Airways, and 18 officials at the Burma Broadcasting Service were also dismissed after supporting the drive to end 25 years of singleparty Socialist rule, the sources said.

"The picture is entirely clear that an interim Government preparing for democratic elections is systematically sacking those who took part in the peaceable movement to press for such elections,” one Western diplomat said.

“One can guess that this comes from the very top and is an act of revenge against those who turned against the system.”

There has been no official confirmation of the purge, but the sources said it had had a bad effect on morale in the Government apparatus. The Army took over after six months of national protest and violent repression in which thousands were killed, promising a General Election as soon as order was restored.