Myanmar regime clamps down on pro-democracy party

YANGON, Myanmar - Police and intelligence officers moved against Myanmar's battered opposition party Sunday, surrounding the homes of its leaders and effectively shutting down its nerve center in a crackdown that has triggered international condemnation.

The authoritarian military regime said senior members of the opposition National League for Democracy party were ''requested to stay at their respective residences.''

The crackdown followed what the opposition said was the forced end to a nine-day standoff between the military regime and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The 55-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner and her National League for Democracy party colleagues were returned to the capital Saturday after spending nine days on a suburban roadside. Security personnel had stopped her from traveling to the countryside for political work, and she refused to return to Yangon, capital of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

At almost the same time, party headquarters in Yangon were raided and senior party officials were confined to their homes.

The incident was Suu Kyi's first attempt to travel outside the capital in two years. The government had blocked four previous attempts, most recently in 1998, when she spent 13 days in her car.

British diplomats who tried to visit Suu Kyi and party deputy leader Tin Oo at their homes Saturday were stopped by security personnel, an embassy representative said. The British Embassy said it would press the government for access to Suu Kyi and other party leaders.

In Washington, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned the crackdown.

''The United States is outraged and strongly condemns the Burmese authorities' treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members and the violation of their fundamental human rights,'' Albright said in a statement Saturday.

''We call on the Burmese authorities to allow normal access and freedom of movement to Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy,'' the statement said.

On Sunday, the European Union condemned Myanmar's restrictions on Suu Kyi's movement and freedom of expression, saying it deplored the government's threatening measures.

''The European Union is very preoccupied with the political situation in Rangoon and the forced return of Madame Aung San Suu Kyi to the capital,'' said a statement issued by the French presidency of the EU during a foreign ministers meeting.

Suu Kyi has led the opposition movement in Myanmar since 1988, when the military quashed pro-democracy demonstrations and asserted its authoritarian rule.

She has urged foreign pressure on the military regime and repeatedly has been rebuffed in attempts to hold a dialogue with Myanmar's rulers. She won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her nonviolent pro-democracy work.

The military held an election in 1990, but refused to allow Parliament to convene after the National League for Democracy party won a landslide victory. Since then, Suu Kyi's party members have suffered arrest and harassment.

In a statement Sunday to The Associated Press in Bangkok, the government said it was investigating the activities of 14 foreigners and a U.S. Congressional team that recently visited party headquarters.

The government said the party's executive committee members were asked to stay at their homes and cooperate in the investigation. None is under house arrest, the statement said.

The government announced earlier that the standoff had ended ''happily'' and that Suu Kyi and her party had ''arrived home safe and sound.''

Security personnel were seen Sunday around the National League for Democracy party headquarters and around the houses of Tin Oo and other party officials.

Party sources said party headquarters were raided early Saturday and that police seized several documents.

An official Myanmar newspaper Sunday described party members as ''vultures circling over universities to create disturbances'' and accused them of colluding with foreigners to incite unrest.

The article in the Myanmar language newspaper Kyemon was an apparent reference to a recent workshop in Yangon which included 14 foreign activists who criticized the military's control over education. The workshop was held at party headquarters.

A week later and unrelated to the workshop, a legislative adviser to the U.S. Congress gave a lecture in Yangoon on the U.S. electoral process.