Myanmar junta arrests key activist after manhunt

YANGON, Aug 25 (Reuters) Myanmar's military junta arrested a key social activist and organiser of a rare series of fuel price protests today after a manhunt across Yangon for the few dissidents to have evaded a four-day crackdown.

Htin Kyaw, who has been detained three times this year for demonstrating against falling living standards in the former Burma, shouted anti-junta slogans with another man for three minutes before being seized, witnesses said.

The pair were beaten as they were dragged away by men in civilian clothes, they added.

Police and pro-junta gangs from the feared Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) had been stopping cars and checking bus, railway and ferry terminals across the former capital in one of the harshest crackdowns in years.

Passengers were ordered out of vehicles to have their papers checked against photographs of Htin Kyaw and Htay Kywe, a still influential leader of a 1988 student uprising who remains at large.

Tightening their grip further after a week of rare public protests, the generals also enforced security laws requiring people to register any guests with the authorities.

The Burmese-language services of the BBC, Radio Free Asia and Voice of America had carried an interview with Htin Kyaw yesterday night in which he said he was secretly organising a big demonstration and urged students and Buddhist monks to join in.

In 1988, Yangon's universities and monasteries were the focal points for what became a nationwide uprising against decades of military rule. After several days of clashes, the army moved in to crush the demonstrations, killing 3,000 people.

Despite boiling discontent this week over shock fuel price hikes, analysts say another 1988-style uprising is unlikely, not least because universities have been moved outside the city and civil servants are now in a new capital far to the north.

UP TO 20 YEARS IN JAIL In the first official word on the fate of 13 activists arrested midweek, official papers said they had been ''harming the stability of the state'' and would be charged under an internal security law that carries jail terms of up to 20 years.

The New Light of Myanmar also accused the group, which includes 1988 student figurehead Min Ko Naing, of terrorism.

Min Ko Naing -- a Burmese nom de guerre meaning ''Conqueror of Kings'' -- is the most influential opposition activist after detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

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

''They have made the strongest possible allegations against these activists. Their trials must be open. These activists should be heard in open court,'' Nyan Win, spokesman for Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) said.

The arrests led to another round of international condemnation of Myanmar, which Washington regards as an ''outpost of tyranny'' after 45 years of unbroken military rule.

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

Official papers said 27 others, including 12 women, had been detained in five separate incidents in Yangon by ''people who do not want to see unrest'' -- junta shorthand for USDA gangs.

Eyewitness reports suggested the number arrested over the week was closer to 40, and that in some instances protesters had been slapped and beaten as they were led away.

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 military rule.

Suu Kyi, whose NLD party 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 RAR PM1927