Wired News on March 10, 1995

[FreeBurma@xxxxxxx]

Attn: Burma Newsreaders
Re: Wired News on March 10, 1995
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Burma sets sights on ASEAN membership   

    HANOI, March 10 (Reuter) - Burma wants to join the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and believes this will strengthen regional
security, Burmese Foreign Minister U Ohn Gyaw said in an interview published
on Friday. 

    ``We welcome the concept of 'the ASEAN 10' and consider it an active step
in the direction of strengthening peace, stability and prosperity in this
region,'' he told Vietnam's Communist Party daily Nhan Dan. 

    Gyaw, accompanying Burma's military leader General Than Shwe on his first
official visit to Vietnam, also expressed his support for Vietnam to become
an ASEAN member in July. 

    ASEAN currently groups Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines,
Singapore and Thailand. Laos is an official ASEAN observer and Cambodia has
said it wants to join. 

    Gyaw said Burma, also known as Myanmar, believed that cooperation among
regional countries boosted progress. Now that Burma was moving towards a
market economy, ``the conditions are all the more favourable to tie up
relations between Myanmar and ASEAN,'' he said. 

    Than Shwe, chairman of Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration
Council (SLORC) and prime minister, held talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister
Vo Van Kiet on Thursday. 

    They reaffirmed their resolve to implement signed agreements on
cooperation in forestry, agriculture, precious stones, drug control, culture,
education and oil, the official Vietnam News Agency reported. 

    They welcomed the scheduled signing next month of an agreement on
sustainable development of the Mekong River basin. 

 REUTER


Transmitted: 95-03-10 06:38:01 EST
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EU worried by Burma's crackdown on guerrillas   

    PARIS, March 10 (Reuter) - The European Union said on Friday it was
worried by Burma's military crackdown on the Karen ethnic minority and urged
Rangoon to seek a peaceful settlement to a long-running guerrilla conflict. 

    ``The European Union is following with the greatest concern the evolution
of the situation these past weeks at the frontier between Burma and
Thailand,'' the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement on behalf of the
15-nation EU. 

    It said it had raised the question of the crackdown and the resulting
flood of refugees to Thailand with a senior official of the Foreign Ministry
in Rangoon. France currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU. 

    Burma's Karen National Union (KNU) has been fighting Rangoon for greater
autonomy since 1949, one year after Burma gained independence from Britain. 

    In the early months of their campaign Karen forces, most of whom had
fought in Britain's colonial army, nearly succeeded in seizing Rangoon but
were held off in a northern suburb. 

    Slowly but surely they have been pushed back since. 

    The KNU are now holding out in the remote mountains of southeastern
Burma's Karen state and in Burma's southern Tenasserim Division pan-handle.

REUTER
Transmitted: 95-03-10 14:41:23 EST
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