Burmese Rally Against Military Hard-Liners

Tens of thousands of anti-government demonstrators rallied in Burma’s two largest cities Thursday to demand a leader from outside the hard-line military clique that has ruled for 26 years, diplomats said.

But analysts said that Burma’s only party and its legislature, scheduled to meet today in emergency session, are likely to ignore the demand.

An Asian diplomat in Rangoon, the capital, said that students and Buddhist monks were among an estimated 100,000 people marching in Mandalay, the former royal capital and second-largest city.

Western tourists said that several thousand demonstrators rallied in front of Rangoon General Hospital for a third straight day. Japan’s Kyodo news service, reporting from Rangoon, put the number at 15,000.

Daily Committee Meetings

The Central Committee of the Burma Socialist Program Party has met daily to prepare for an emergency session today in which it is expected to choose a new chairman, diplomats said.

The legislature also has scheduled an emergency session for today, presumably to name a new president after hard-line President Sein Lwin resigned in the face of bloody mass demonstrations last week.

Sein Lwin ruled for only 17 days. He replaced strongman Ne Win, who resigned in June after 26 years in power.

Most analysts believe the new leaders will come from the clique of active and retired top military officers that helped Ne Win take “the Burmese way to socialism”--a mixture of socialist economics, strict military control and international isolationism.