Detained Myanmar activists face legal action

YANGON, Aug 25 (Reuters) Thirteen prominent pro-democracy activists arrested this week in military-ruled Myanmar are being interrogated and legal action will be taken against them, the junta's official newspaper reported today.

The New Light of Myanmar said the detainees, most of them leaders of a ruthlessly suppressed student uprising in 1988, were being accused of ''harming the stability of the state, community peace and rule of law'' under an act that carries a penalty of up to 20 years in jail.

In the first official word on their fate, the newspaper also accused the group - the most influential opposition figures after detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi - of terrorism and having contacts with exiled anti-government groups.

The arrests were part of a major crackdown by the junta, which tolerates virtually no dissent, on a series of small but defiant protests against soaring fuel costs and deterioriating living standards.

The arrests led to another round of international condemnation of the former Burma, which Washington regards as an ''outpost of tyranny'' after more than four decades of unbroken military rule.

The papers did not say when or where trials would be held.

Relatives expressed concern about the detainees' health, saying many were on medication after a decade or more in prison.

''They are now in their 40s. They all are not in good health since they had to spend a long time in prison. They couldn't take anything when they were taken,'' one relative said.

SECURITY CLAMPDOWN The generals also tightened their grip on the former capital, Yangon, enforcing loathed internal security laws that require people to register any guests with the authorities.

Security police and members of the junta's feared Union Solidarity and Development Association, or USDA, were stopping and searching vehicles at night in an apparent search for two ''88 Generation'' activists still on the run.

In addition to the 13 ringleaders, the junta detained nearly 40 people for staging protest marches through Yangon, a city of 5 million whose bus network was brought to a standstill this month by shock hikes in fuel prices.

Despite their determination, analysts say ordinary people are probably too scared to get involved, which suggested a repeat of the 1988 mass uprising of students, monks and civil servants is unlikely.

As many as 3,000 people are thought to have been killed in the army's brutal suppression of the unrest.

Since then, most civil servants have been moved to a distant new capital and university campuses relocated to Yangon's outskirts - tactics possibly designed to counter any future unrest, Myanmar exile groups in Thailand say.

The world's largest rice exporter when it won independence from Britain in 1948, Myanmar is now one of Asia's poorest countries after more than four decades of unbroken military rule.

Suu Kyi, whose NLD won a 1990 landslide election victory only to be denied power by the army, has spent most of the 17 years since in prison or under house arrest.

REUTERS RN RAI1010