UN chief meets SLORC foreign minist

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Subject: UN chief meets SLORC foreign minister

UN chief meets Burmese foreign minister

RANGOON, May 8  - A senior UN official met Thursday with Burmese Foreign 
Minister Ohn Gyaw on the second day of a visit to discuss national 
reconciliation and human rights with the ruling junta, an informed source 
said.
Alvaro de Soto, the UN assistant secretary general for political affairs, met 
Ohn Gyaw and other foreign ministry officials and was to hold talks later with 
Khin Nyunt, the junta's powerful intelligence chief.
De Soto's arrival Wednesday has gone unremarked in the official media, and 
Burmese authorities did not not respond to requests for details on the UN 
official's first visit to Burma since late 1995.
Informed sources, who requested anonymity, said de Soto was to continue talks 
begun during his last visit on national reconciliation and the implementation 
of a 1996 UN resolution on human rights in Burma.
De Soto is also to meet Friday with opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and 
visit the tomb of former UN secretary general U Thant.
He is also to meet with Khun Htun Oo, the chairman of the Shan Nationalities 
League for Democracy, who is representing Burma's ethnic minorities.
In a statement for de Soto from the SNLD, which was received by AFP, the group 
said that Burma's ethnic minorities were still struggling to have democracy 
and being oppressed by the ruling junta.
"At present, we the nationalities and the great majority are severely 
oppressed under the military dictatorship and losing our basic democratic 
rights, equality and self-determination," the statement said.
The statement said that for national reconciliation to take place, armed 
conflict had to end and negotiations needed to take place between the ruling 
State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC), the democratic opposition and 
ethnic minorities.
Currently, some 15 ethnic groups have signed ceasefire agreements with the 
SLORC, although many have complained that the terms of the pacts, including 
development assistance, have been ignored.
The SLORC is sweeping through areas held by the Karen National Union, the 
country's last major insurgency, in southeastern Burma.

AFP