Kuwait Times

Published Date: September 08, 2008

NAYPYIDAW: Myanmar's military rulers yesterday accused two members of the pro-democracy opposition party of Aung San Suu Kyi over the bombing of pro-government offices in July.

The national police chief said officers had seized bomb-making equipment from two members of the National League of Democracy party, who had been arrested along with a human rights activist.

According to the information we have received, some NLD members were involved in attending training sessions for bombing... and possessing destructive tools such as gun-powder and detonators," Khin Yee told a press conference in the remote capital Naypyidaw.

The police chief did not say when the arrests took place. The bombing was of a pro-junta Union Solidarity and Development Association office in Shwe Pyitha township in the northern economic hub of Yangon. It caused some damage but no one was hurt.

NLD youth members Yan Shwe and Zaw Zaw Aung were arrested along with activist and former NLD member Myint Aye, who is accused of funding them. Another NLD youth member, Yan Naung Soe, remains at large, the police chief said.

He added trials were proceeding for 21 pro-democracy activists arrested in August last year after holding rallies that snowballed into mass protests against the regime.

The group includes Min Ko Naing and Ko Ko Gyi, who were among the top student leaders of a pro-democracy uprising in 1988. Both have already served lengthy prison sentences.

Asked if the ruling junta would clamp down on NLD activities in the wake of the latest arrests, Information Minister Kyaw Hsan told reporters the government would monitor the movements of party members.

We will act according to their movements in the future," Kyaw Hsan said.
The NLD won a landslide victory in the 1990 election but the junta never allowed them to take office and Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest almost constantly since then.

Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962. Last year's protests were the biggest threat to military rule since the 1988 uprising.

Police chief yesterday denied detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was on hunger strike after her party said she has been refusing food for three weeks. Khin Yee told reporters a lawyer and doctor had visited the Nobel peace laureate, who has spent most of the past 19 years under house arrest.

We allowed lawyer U Kyi Win to visit Daw Suu Kyi three times as she requested, as well as her doctor Tin Myo Win for her medical check-up," the police chief told a press conference.

According to their report back to us, we haven't heard anything about Daw Su Kyi being on hunger strike in her house," he said. Aung San Suu Kyi's National League of Democracy (NLD) party reported on Friday that she had been refusing food supplies for the past three weeks but stopped short of claiming she was on hunger strike.

The 63-year-old is allowed little contact with the outside world, but in recent weeks has refused even the rare meetings that the junta has offered her, declining to meet its liaison officer this week.

She also refused to meet visiting UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari last month, fuelling speculation about her motives, with analysts saying she was trying to express her frustration with the slow pace of the regime's "dialogue" with her.

Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a landslide victory in a 1990 election but the junta never allowed it to take office. Myanmar has been ruled by the military since 1962.

The police chief was joined by ministers from the ruling junta for the press conference held in the remote and newly built capital Naypyidaw.- AFP