Pro-Democracy Supporters Arrested in Myanmar
The Associated Press, October 2, 2006
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/10/03/asia/AS_GEN_Myanmar_Arrested_Activists.php

Five prominent pro-democracy activists of the “88 Generation Students Group” have been arrested by the military government in Myanmar.  The junta claims they arrested the five due to “pending terrorist plots” and have accused the activists of causing unrest and destabilization of the country.  This move comes after the United States called for the United Nations Security Council to put Myanmar on its agenda, “a historic decision that would let the council more closely scrutinize Myanmar’s military government and the plight of its people by asking for briefings by U.N. officials and adopting resolutions.”
 
The arrests began on September 27th, the 18-year anniversary of the founding of the National League for Democracy (NLD) party in 1988.  The pro-democratic NLD was founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and helped launch the democratic uprisings in 1988. Although it swept the free elections in Myanmar in 1990, the military government nullified the results of the election and has continued to hold political power in the country.

Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested in 1988 after founding the NLD.  She has been on and off of house arrest since that time and is currently imprisoned in Yangon, where she has been since her arrest in 2003.  In 2000, unable to leave Myanmar, Suu Kyi taped remarks in support of the meeting in Warsaw, Poland, that established the Community of Democracies (click here to read a transcript of the video).   In response to Suu Kyi’s arrest in 2003, the Convening Group of the Community of Democracies released a statement condemning the arrest and calling for her release (read this statement on page 11).

Key Burmese democracy activists from this time, many of whom have previously been arrested and imprisoned, as well as exiled groups, “politicians, students activists and certain members of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party” have founded the “88 Generation Students Group” which continues to protest Suu Kyi’s imprisonment, the military governments’ human rights abuses, and calls for democracy reform in the country.