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Reuter's news on Nov. 13



Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Reuter' s News on Nov. 13

Burma to open up Kachin state to foreign visitors

    RANGOON, Nov 13 (Reuter) - A senior Burmese general was quoted on Sunday
as calling for journalists and tourists to be allowed to visit Burma's
northern-most Kachin state, out of bounds to most foreigners for decades. 
    State-run media quoted military intelligence chief Lieutenant-General
Khin Nyunt as saying peace had prevailed in Kachin state since the ethnic
minority Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO) guerrilla group ``returned to
the legal fold'' earlier this year. 
    Khin Nyunt made the remarks in a speech to a student sports committee in
Rangoon on Saturday. 
    The KIO, one of Burma's most powerful guerrilla armies which had been
battling Rangoon for greater autonomy since the early 1960s, sealed a
ceasefire agreement with the junta earlier this year after lengthy
negotiations. 
   Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, has been chosen to host Burma's
next annual student sports festival. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 94-11-13 04:36:24 EST
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Junta's talks with dissident may end Burma deadlock

    By Tony Austin 
    BANGKOK, Nov 13 (Reuter) - A budding dialogue between Burma's ruling
junta and Aung San Suu Kyi may help end the deadlock paralysing the country's
foreign relations since the dissident leader was silenced more than five
years ago, diplomats said. 
    Japan said recently it was reconsidering its ban on economic ties, and
both Britain and the United States, leading critics of the Burmese
government, sent senior officials to Rangoon this month. 
    ``The general feeling is that, whether the pressure is from inside or
outside, things are changing,'' a Bangkok-based diplomat who visited Rangoon
this month told Reuters. 
    Another diplomat said Western businessmen, sensing a relaxation of
political tension, were anxious not to be left behind by China and other
Asian countries as Burma lurches towards a market economy. 
    ``The talks with Aung San Suu Kyi are a small sign that something is
happening,  It is like the stirring of spring after a long winter,'' the
second diplomat said. 
    The United States and many European and other governments froze ties with
Burma in 1988 when troops suppressed a democracy uprising, killing possibly
thousands of people in Rangoon and other cities and towns. 
    Suu Kyi, whose father General Aung San was a national hero of Burma's
independence from Britain in 1948, co-founded the National League for
Democracy (NLD) following the suppression of the nationwide protests. 
    The State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the political arm of
the armed forces, placed her under arrest in her Rangoon home on July 20,
1989. 
    Despite her enforced silence, the NLD won a resounding victory in a 1990
general election, and the following year Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. She has also won a human rights award from the European Parliament and
from the International Human Rights Law Group. 
    Suu Kyi met representatives from the junta at a military guest house in
Rangoon on September 20, the first meeting since she was placed under house
arrest. Burma's official media said little about the talks except that they
were cordial. 
    The second meeting on October 28, also at a military guest house, lasted
three hours and covered the current political and economic situation in
Burma, the state-run media said. 
    ``I expect there will be more meetings at a working level after the high
profile start,'' said one diplomat, adding the presence of armed forces
inspectors at the second session meant the whole of SLORC was behind the
initiative. 
    Viewed from embassy chancelleries in Rangoon and Bangkok, the junta
appears to have grasped that economic and political progress are
interdependent. 
    Brigadier-General David Abel, minister for national planning and economic
development, astonished an audience of visiting foreigners in Rangoon
recently by freely admitting the military had made serious mistakes in the
past. 
    On October 29, 1988, the generals gave up their ill-fated experiment with
home-brewed socialism and declared a free market economy. 
    Japan, the regional economic superpower whose exports are flooding
southeast Asian markets, said on November 4 it was considering easing
restrictions on economic ties with Burma in light of the dialogue between
SLORC and Suu Kyi. 
    Official development aid from Tokyo had virtually dried up since the 1988
military crackdown. 
    U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Hubbard, who made the
first high-level contact between Washington and Burma since 1989, said on
November 2 the United States would use both carrots and sticks. 
    Burma must show it is serious about human rights, democratisation and
countering illegal narcotics before there can be any talk of resuming aid,
the U.S. official said. 
    A U.N. special rapporteur on human rights, Japanese professor Yozo
Yokota, visited a railway construction site in southeast Burma last week that
critics say is being built with forced labour. 
    In a report on Burma earlier this year, Yokota said he was concerned by
continued reports of forced porterage, forced labour, forced relocation,
arbitrary killings, beatings, rapes and confiscation of property by army
soldiers. 
    Britain, the former colonial power and a hardliner in international
condemnation of the SLORC, also relented this month and sent in the first
senior official for four years. 
    The three-day visit by David Dain, an assistant undersecretary of state,
was described as a step in the European Union's policy of ``critical
dialogue.'' 
    ``The emphasis is on both words,'' a British official told Reuters. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 94-11-12 23:57:10 EST
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British official calls on Burmese military leaders

    BANGKOK, Nov 11 (Reuter) - A senior British Foreign Office representative
met Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, a leading member of Burma's ruling State
Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), on Friday, British embassy
officials in Rangoon said. 
    David Dain, an Assistant Undersecretary of State, also met Burmese
Foreign Minister Ohn Gyaw and the government's protocol director, Burmese
state television monitored in Thailand reported later. 
    Dain, who was making the first visit by a senior British official since
1990, discussed bilateral relations and trade, according to the television. 
    British embassy officials said the visit was in line with the European
Union's policy of ``critical dialogue'' with the Burmese military leadership.

    Both Britain and the United States, leading critics of the Burmese
government for its human rights record and suppression of pro-democracy
movements, have now sent official representatives to Rangoon this month. 
    Military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt took part in two meetings, in
September and October, with detained dissident leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the
pro-democracy leader who has been under house arrest in Rangoon since July,
1989. 
    Dain was due to leave Rangoon later on Friday for Bangkok after his
three-day visit. 
    On November 2, Thomas Hubbard, a U.S. Deputy assistant secretary of
state, said after a visit to Burma that Washington would adopt a stick and
carrot approach to the Rangoon junta in order to encourage democratic change.

    Hubbard had requested a meeting with Suu Kyi, who is the daughter of
Burmese independence hero General Aung San and also winner of the 1991 Nobel
Peace prize, but was refused. 

REUTER
Transmitted: 94-11-11 11:59:14 EST
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