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UN assistant secretary general meet



Subject: UN assistant secretary general meets            Burmese officials, opposition

UN assistant secretary general meets
           Burmese officials, opposition

           (ADDS detail, background)

           RANGOON, May 10 (AFP) - A senior Burmese junta member met UN
           assistant secretary general for political affairs Alavaro de Soto
on Saturday
           following his discussions with the opposition, official sources said.

           De Soto wrapped up his four-day official visit by meeting the
junta's first
           secretary and military intelligence chief Khin Nyunt Saturday
morning, the
           sources said.

           The UN official Friday met Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the National
League
           for Democracy (NLD), which swept 1990 elections to a parliament never
           convened by the junta, and her executive committee, party sources
said.

           No information was available on the content of the discussions.

           On Friday, De Soto met with Htun Oo, chairman the ethnic Shan
Nationalities
           League for Democracy (SNLD), an unrelated political party which
also won
           seats in the election.

           Htun Oo told AFP they had a very fruitful and interesting
discussion, in which
           SNLD executives had a chance to brief the UN official on the
prevailing
           situation and the position of the ethnic minorities.

           Informed sources said a document passed to De Soto and
representing the
           views of the elected representatives of ethnic minorities in
Burma called for a
           tripartite dialogue among democratic, ethnic and military forces.

           The goal of the dialogue should be a democratic and federal
union, according
           to a copy of the document obtained by AFP.

           The document rejected the National Convention set up by the
military's ruling
           State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) to draft a new
           constitution.

           "At the convention only 15 percent of elected members were
included and the
           rest were hand-picked," it said.

           The Nationalities' demands for democracy and self-determination
under a
           federation were ingnored, while the military presented guidelines
preserving for
           itself a leading political role in future state affairs.

           The military was trying to control state and executive powers
from the central
           all the way down to the township level, and those few political
parties which
           had not been declared illegal were prevented from carrying out
political
           activities, the document said. 

           De Soto also met Rangoon-based diplomats, Burmese Foreign
Minister Ohn
           Gyaw, Chief Justice Aung Toe and other members of the National
Convention
           convening commission.

           Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD withdrew from the convention after a
percentage of
           seats in any future parliament was reserved for the military,
saying it was
           useless to attempt to influence official drafts through the process.