Security forces arrest 20 students in Yangon
Security forces arrest 20 students in Yangon
YANGON (Reuter): Myanmar's security forces arrested about 20
students amid scattered protests in the capital Yangon, witnesses
and diplomats said yesterday.
Some 50 Yangon University students staged a brief anti-
government protest in front of the U.S. embassy in the center of
the city late on Tuesday, they told Reuters.
"They gathered near the embassy after either walking or taking
buses to the embassy. About 20 students were arrested," a student
source said.
Government confirmation was not immediately available. More
than 100 students at a medical school in central Yangon shouted
anti-government slogans at the gate of their campus on Tuesday
and later dispersed, witnesses said.
Police and military personnel manned checkpoints in the
vicinity of the university and the Yangon Institute of Technology
for the sixth day.
All university campuses have been closed since Monday and
student sources said yesterday that parents were told by campus
authorities to take home boarding students for two weeks.
Anti-government street protests staged by students last week
were the biggest seen in Yangon since the pro-democracy uprisings
of 1988, which the military crushed leaving thousands dead or in
jail.
At the peak of the demonstrations, thousands of protesters
took to the streets from the two colleges. The authorities broke
up the protests, held over 860 students and later freed them.
The students were protesting against alleged police brutality
during a brawl in October between some institute students and
restaurant owners. They also want to be allowed to set up student
unions on campus.
Official Myanmar media yesterday quoted top officials of the
ruling military-led State Law and Order Restoration Council
(SLORC) as warning against further disturbances by unnamed
politicians and students.
"If peace and tranquility are marred due to lack of restraint
and thoughtlessness of some politicians, arrangements for the
building of a modern nation will meet with delay, hindrance or
disruption," SLORC chairman Senior Gen. Than Shwe said in speech
to the government-run Union Solidarity and Development
Association.
Powerful military intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Khin Nyunt told
Myanmar writers at a ceremony yesterday to beware the threat to
Myanmar posed by internal and external destructive elements. He
did not identify the elements.
Diplomats said the SLORC had issued circulars to all embassies
in Yangon, informing them the SLORC had exercised maximum
restraint despite sustained student protests.
The circular said the SLORC request for opposition leader Aung
San Suu Kyi to temporarily confine herself to her lakeside
residence was for the Nobel laureate's own safety.
Suu Kyi has denied NLD members were involved in the unrest and
protested restrictions on her movements.