AP/RETUERS_2.4.97: U.S.DELEGATE ON

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Subject: AP/RETUERS_2.4.97: U.S.DELEGATE ON THE MOVE ON U.N.RIGHTS-LOBBY

	EUR: US SAYS WANTS UN RIGHTS VOTE ON CHINA
UN CHINA
	   GENEVA, April 2 Reuter - A senior United States official has 
said Washington wanted a resolution criticising China to emerge 
from the United Nations Human Rights Commission currently in 
session in Geneva.
	   Bill Richardson, US ambassador to the UN in New York and a 
member of President Bill Clinton's cabinet, was speaking at a news 
conference last night after telling the Commission China "continues 
to commit widespread and well-documented human rights abuses."
	   "Our hope is to be part of a human rights resolution (on China) 
that emerges from our European colleagues," he declared, saying a 
prime purpose of his Geneva trip was to rally support against 
Chinese blocking tactics on the issue.
	   Washington was "determined that there be a human rights 
resolution in some fashion," he added.
	   He was speaking amid clear signs that the 15-nation European 
Union, which over the past few years has sponsored the annual bid 
to have China condemned by the 53-member Commission, would not 
unite this year behind a text.
	   France said last week it would not go along with a resolution 
again, arguing that "constructive dialogue" with Beijing was more 
productive than pushing without success for condemnation of China 
in the UN body.
	   Some other EU states, including Germany, are sympathetic to the 
French stance, according to diplomatic sources.
	   For the past six years, China has fought off even the tabling of 
a resolution on its rights record by winning majority support in 
the Commission for a "no action" motion, and diplomats say it is 
well positioned to succeed again.
	   Richardson said he would be engaged in "quite active lobbying" 
against the "no action" motion and would aim at what he called 
"eight or nine swing votes that are moving rapidly" in a bid to 
defeat it.
	   But he declined to say if the United States would produce a 
resolution of its own on China if the Europeans failed to agree on 
a text.
	   In his speech to the Commission, briefly interrupted by a 
Chinese delegate who accused him of abusing his status as a guest, 
Richardson hailed improvements in living standards and "some 
positive reforms in the rule of law" in China.
	   But Beijing continued "to severely restrict fundamental freedoms 
of speech, the press, assembly, association and religion, in 
violation of internationally-accepted norms," he declared.
	   "We do not seek confrontation over this issue, but we firmly 
believe that the PRC (People's Republic of China) should be held 
accountable, and certainly at the United Nations Human Rights 
Commission, to the international standards that China itself has 
endorsed," the US envoy added.
	   He said he would also be looking for resolutions condemning 
Cuba, Burma and Sudan among others.
	   China accuses Western countries of using the Commission to 
target emerging economies, arguing that no country's record on 
human rights is perfect.
	   REUTER  ts

	ASIA: BURMESE WOMEN IN DESPERATE SITUATION
BURMA WOMEN
   BANGKOK, Thailand, April 4 AP - Widespread human-rights abuses 
inflicted by the military government in Burma fall hardest on the 
country's women, a Burmese opposition group said today.
	   The country's best-known woman, pro-democracy leader Aung San 
Suu Kyi, winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, has been effectively 
silenced by the regime and is virtually confined to her home.
	   But ordinary women, especially those belonging to ethnic 
minorities, have also suffered badly at the hands of the regime, 
the All Burma Democratic Students Front said in a new report.
	   The ABSDF is composed of students who fled to Burma's jungles 
after the current regime, the State Law and Order Restoration 
Council, gunned down thousands of pro-democracy activists in 1988.
	   The report said the army frequently drafts women as forced 
forced  porters in its campaigns against the country's various 
rebel groups, including the ABSDF, and makes them act as human 
minesweepers.
	   The soldiers often gang-rape the women at night and routinely 
rape women whose villages are razed in a military attempt to pacify 
ethnic rebel groups. Tens of thousands are forced to live in misery 
as refugees in Thailand.
	   The level of care both urban and rural mothers can provide their 
children has steadily deteriorated since the military first seized 
power in 1962 and sent the economy and health-care system on a 
long, downward spiral, the report said.
	   Lack of economic opportunities has sent tens of thousands of 
Burmese women and girls across the border to make a living in the 
sex industry of wealthier Thailand, where they are subject to 
beatings and sometimes murder, the report said. They are 
particularly vulnerable to AIDS.
	   The report noted that women traditionally have had little voice 
in Burmese society.
	   Of the 485 members of the parliament elected in 1990, only 15 
were women, all members of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy.
	   The NLD overwhelmingly won the vote but the regime never allowed 
parliament to convene.
	   There was no immediate response to the charges from the military 
regime, but most of the allegations in the report have been 
previously documented and published by human-rights groups.
	   The government postponed its regular news conference this month 
"due to unforeseen circumstances," apparently referring to an 
outbreak of rioting by Buddhist monks against minority Muslims in 
several cities.
	   The unrest was reportedly set off by the rape of a Buddhist girl 
by one or more Muslim men in the country's second-largest city, 
Mandalay.
	    AP  ts