Junta frees 50 detained, Burma says

RANGOON, Burma - The military government released 50 members of Burma's pro-democracy party on the same day it met with their leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a response to international pressure over the crushing of peaceful demonstrations, a party spokesman said Friday.

Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. envoy trying to broker a compromise between Suu Kyi and the junta, told reporters in Japan that the meeting was a good beginning. "But it's only the first step, so this should lead to early resumption of talks that will lead to tangible results," he said.

The junta, meanwhile, deployed hundreds of riot police with assault rifles and tear gas in Rangoon in an apparent attempt to forestall any demonstrations exactly one month after the government began its violent suppression of the protests by Buddhist monks, activists and ordinary citizens.

Security was especially tight at the eastern gate of the Shwedagon pagoda, where monks were beaten as police broke up a protest on Sept. 26. Barbed wire was erected around the area while police and junta backers took up positions near the Sule Pagoda in the heart of the city and other sites of earlier protests.

There were no signs of unrest as thousands of pilgrims thronged Shwedagon and other pagodas at the end of the Lent period, an important Buddhist holiday when monks can leave their monasteries to travel after several months of monsoon season retreats.

But a local reporter who tried to take a photo of pilgrims at the Shwedagon was immediately surrounded by about a dozen riot police. One officer confiscated the memory card from his camera.

Ten monks and 50 members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy were among 70 people freed Thursday from Insein Prison in Rangoon, said Nyan Win, a spokesman for the party.

Among those released was Hla Pe, an 82-year-old party executive, Nyan Win said, adding that at least 250 party members remained in detention.

Suu Kyi met Thursday with a newly appointed Burmese government official as part of a U.N.-brokered attempt to nudge her and the military junta toward reconciliation.