Myanmar junta links US to pro-democracy activists, said to have terror links

YANGON, Myanmar: Myanmar's military government stepped up its propaganda against the country's pro-democracy movement Sunday, alleging that top activists planned terrorist acts and received money from Western nations.

The junta also charged that prominent activist Htay Kywe, who escaped a security dragnet last month, was helped to hide by the embassy of a "powerful country" — an apparent reference to the United States, one of the regime's harshest critics.

The allegations come as the junta grapples with scattered but spirited protests against its economic policies.

Scores of people have been detained for taking part in demonstrations, which have been broken up by pro-government toughs directed by security forces.

The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, is facing worldwide condemnation for its hardline handling of demonstrations that began Aug. 19 to protest a fuel price hike and a rise in the cost of consumer goods.

The protests took a more confrontational tone last week in northern Myanmar, when Buddhist monks — angry at being beaten up for protesting economic conditions — temporarily took officials hostage and later smashed a shop and a house belonging to junta supporters.

The junta's Information Committee charged that "internal and external pessimist and opposition groups are striving to create riots and disturbances" similar to mass pro-democracy demonstrations in 1988. It also blamed the groups for past bombings.

The groups' aim was "to gain power by a short cut," said its statement, published Sunday in the state-run New Light of Myanmar newspaper.

The 1988 uprising was brutally crushed by the military, which has refused to yield power even after Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's pro-democracy political party won a 1990 general election.

The government's statement also implied that the United States was involved in the opposition groups' plans. It cited funds that U.S. organizations were said to have given to dissident groups.

It said "a world-famous organization of a powerful state provided US$100,000 under the heading of helping refugees," and it alleged that the money was really used for training in bomb-making and demolition.

The statement said Htay Kywe, an activist in hiding, was being helped by an unspecified foreign embassy. He is a leader of the 88 Generation Students, a group that has been spearheading nonviolent activities against the junta for the past year.

"Htay Kywe is still at large, as he had been hidden at a secure place by an embassy of a powerful country," the statement said, without elaborating.

U.S. diplomats in Myanmar's capital, Yangon, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

About a dozen members of Htay Kywe's group were rounded up shortly after organizing the first of the latest round of protests.

The group members were held on charges of trying to disrupt Myanmar's National Convention, which is setting guidelines for a new constitution. If convicted, they could each face up to 20 years in prison.

The convention completed its work on Sept. 3 with guidelines that would keep the military heavily involved in administering the country, and would bar Suu Kyi, who has long been under house arrest, from holding political office.

Htay Kywe has issued several statements from hiding, including a Sept. 6 letter urging the U.N. Security Council to take up the Myanmar issue — a course of action Washington has endorsed.

The government said in its news release that it "will continue to take preventive measures against those malicious collaborated efforts to commit terrorist destructive acts."