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YANGON : Myanmar's junta-controlled state media Sunday accused "power-craving" opportunists of using Aung San Suu Kyi's trial to incite riots as it condemned the uprising 21 years ago that made her a heroine.
The Nobel Laureate is in a Yangon prison awaiting the delayed verdict in her trial on charges that she breached her house arrest when an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May.
"The people noticed that today, some political opportunists and power-craving elements are trying to incite riots under the pretext of Daw Suu Kyi's case," a commentary in The New Light of Myanmar newspaper said.
On Saturday, exiled Myanmar nationals in Bangkok and elsewhere marked the 21st anniversary of their country's failed student-led uprising with pro-democracy demonstrations and renewed calls for Suu Kyi to be freed.
The United States and Britain also made fresh appeals for her unconditional release, and that of more than 2,100 other political prisoners in Myanmar, although streets were quiet and security tight in Myanmar's main town Yangon.
The state newspaper said the 1988 "unrest" -- which began on August 8 and eventually saw more than 3,000 killed in a brutal army clampdown -- was extreme.
"Once the people turn violent and wild, they all discarded democratic practices and the law and put aside any forms of public interest," the English-language newspaper said.
It also warned that would-be agitators should abandon their plans "if they think they really love their country, and they should stand for election in the 2010 multi-party democracy election".
Suu Kyi has already spent 14 of the past 20 years in detention, and critics of the military government say her internationally condemned trial is a ploy to keep her locked up during the elections scheduled for next year.
The prison court is scheduled to hand down a judgment Tuesday. But diplomats and officials have said that illness besetting US national John Yettaw -- who sparked the case by swimming to her home -- could cause further delays.
- AFP/ir
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