Rangoon NLD demanding the reopening of offices

October 24, 2003

The NLD township organising members in Rangoon Division are demanding the local authorities and township election commissions to allow them to reopen their offices which have been forced to close down since the end of May after Dipeyin incident had occurred.

U Maung Maung Hein reports:

U Maung Maung Hein : Organising committee members of each township in Rangoon are sending letters demanding the reopening of their individual offices to their respective township election commissions from 22 October. A member of Kyimyintaing Township NLD said that the campaign is starting from 22 October and it is to end on 23 October.

Khayan, Sanchaung and Kyimyintaing townships have already sent the letters, he said. He also added that after the initial actions of Rangoon Division, members in Irrawaddy, Pegu, Mandalay divisions are to follow suit.

‘Our offices were closed down on the 31 May 2003. They could give us no concrete reason for doing so. They did it illegally. Our offices have been closed down for almost five months now. They are officially registered offices of a legal party. We need to resume our duties in the offices. Our party also won a landslide victory in 1990 election. We need to have offices to implement our policies. Therefore, we are ‘informing’ the election commissions to reopen our offices as soon as possible,’ said the same member.