As many as 500 people signed the petition at the NLD’s headquarters,” said an opposition politician who attended the party’s ceremony to mark an historic agreement reached by Burma’s ethnic groups on the eve of the country’s independence.
The politician, who was elected in a 1990 vote that the country’s ruling junta refused to honor, said that members of various ethnic groups signed the petition, which was launched as part of a new campaign to free more than 2,000 political prisoners, including NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
People living near the NLD’s headquarters reported seeing many plainclothes riot police and members of the junta’s Swan Arr Shin militia deployed in the area from early morning.
“There have been many Swan Arr Shin people on the streets and in trucks since early this morning,” said a local resident, adding that some of the security forces could be seen filming and photographing people attending the NLD’s ceremony. However, no arrests were reported.
In a Union Day message published in the state-run New Light of Myanmar, the head of Burma’s ruling junta, Snr-Gen Than Shwe, used the occasion to urge the Burmese people to “make endeavors for building of a new modern developed discipline-flourishing democratic nation.”
Union Day commemorates the signing of the historic Panglong Agreement by independence leader Gen Aung San and leaders of various ethnic groups on February 12, 1947. The agreement set the stage for Burma’s independence from British colonial rule the following year.
No comments:
Post a Comment