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- <text id=89TT1963>
- <title>
- July 31, 1989: World Notes:Burma
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- July 31, 1989 Doctors And Patients
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 30
- World Notes
- BURMA
- Locking the Gates
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The city of Rangoon narrowly avoided another bloodbath last
- week when club-wielding government troops waded into 1,000
- protesters on Martyrs Day, which marked the 42nd anniversary of
- the death of independence hero Aung San. The government reported
- that 44 people had been "detained."
- </p>
- <p> It could have been much worse. Only hours earlier Aung
- San's daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, 44, the general-secretary of
- the opposition National League for Democracy, had canceled a
- scheduled protest march out of fear that the ruling military
- junta would turn it into a massacre. Said Suu Kyi in a letter
- sent to political parties throughout the city: "Let the world
- know that under this administration the Burmese people are like
- prisoners in their own homes."
- </p>
- <p> Her words proved prophetic. The next day government
- soldiers placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, effectively cutting
- her off from all contact with the outside world. For most
- political observers in Rangoon, Suu Kyi's detention demonstrated
- that the junta never intended to honor its promise of holding
- a free and fair election next May.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-