27.6.97:AMERICANS'RE IN TOWN/KHIN N

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Subject: 27.6.97:AMERICANS'RE IN TOWN/KHIN NYUNT IN RECKLESS BEHAVIOUR

	ASIA: AUNG SAN SUU KYI CALLS FOR DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION
BURMA SUUKYI
   RANGOON, June 26 AFP - Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi has told a US 
delegation that her political party would only participate in a 
convention to frame a new Burmese constitution if it was more 
democratic, a party source said today.
	   The National League for Democracy (NLD) leader made the comments 
at her residence yesterday to the American Heritage Foundation, a 
US Republican Party think tank currently on a fact-finding mission 
in Rangoon.
	   Burma's ruling junta has established a National Convention to 
draft a new constition which will guarantee a leading role for the 
military in politics.
	   "The National Convention is unacceptable in its present form and 
our position is still the same ... We will attend only if it 
becomes democratic," the NLD source quoted Aung San Suu Kyi as 
saying.
	   The military's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council 
(SLORC) expelled the NLD from the convention in late 1995 after the 
party launched a boycott to protest against clauses granting 
extraordinary powers to the army.
	   Aung San Suu Kyi's remarks followed commentaries in Burma's 
official press on Tuesday which said the NLD was sending out 
signals that it wanted to re-enter the convention.
	   The 18-member US delegation, led by its chairman David Randolph 
and including former attorney general Edwin Meese, had earlier 
yesterday met with Lieutenant General Khin Nyunt, the SLORC's first 
secretary.
	   The official New Light of Myanmar daily ran a front page photo 
of the meeting, but gave few details other than to say that Khin 
Nyunt explained social, economic and political conditions in Burma 
and the National Convention.
	   State media made no mention of the delegation's three-hour 
meeting with Aung San Suu Kyi, which was attended by 18 NLD 
members, including the nine-member central executive committee, the 
source said.
	   Aung San Suu Kyi told the foundation that true dialogue would be 
required for the NLD to change its position and for all parties to 
come up with a mutually acceptable role for the military in a 
future political system.
	   She also spelt out some of the "disturbing" points of the 
convention's planned constitution.
	   These included the junta's insistence that 25 per cent of the 
seats in any future parliament be reserved for the military, that 
the president had to be an ex-army man, and that the military could 
take power in times of crisis.
	   The vast majority of delegates to the National Convention were 
appointed by the military, but prior to the expulsion of the NLD 
about 15 per cent of them had won seats in 1990 elections never 
ratified by the junta.
	   NLD candidates would have held more than 80 per cent of the 
seats had a parliament been convened.
	   Representatives of ethnic minority groups which have reached 
ceasefires with the junta are also included in the convention.
	   A reliable source here said the NLD had not requested to 
re-enter the convention.
	   NLD president Aung Shwe had however sent a letter to SLORC 
chairman General Than Shwe, saying that the party would be prepared 
to discuss its differences with the military over the charter 
drafting process, the source said.
	   Yesterday, a senior Burmese government official said that SLORC 
would give "serious consideration" to a "straight-forward request" 
from the NLD to rejoin.
	   The NLD source said Aung San Suu Kyi's doctor was in attendance 
at the meeting at the US delegation as she has not fully recovered 
from a recent fall at her residence.
	   The Nobel Peace Prize laureate reportedly showed frequent signs 
of fatigue.
	   AFP br
	ASIA: BURMA ACCUSES US OF AIDING AND ABETTING TERRORIST ATTACK
BURMA US
   RANGOON, Burma, June 27 AP - Burma's powerful intelligence chief 
accused the United States today of aiding and abetting terrorist 
attacks in Burma as he announced the arrests of democracy activists 
he claimed were plotting to blow up foreign embassies and 
government leaders in Rangoon.
	   In a press conference from which foreign reporters and diplomats 
were barred, General Khin Nyunt, one of the top four members of the 
military government, exposed what he called "the vile and vicious 
drama of terrorism staged in the name of democracy and human 
rights."
	   Blasting economic sanctions President Clinton imposed on Burma 
in April because of the regime's mounting repression against the 
country's democracy movement, Khin Nyunt said the United States had 
"terminated all aid programs extended to the government and have 
transferred assistance to underground armed groups and terrorist 
groups."
	   Although he dismissed the sanctions as having no effect on the 
Burmese economy when they were invoked, Khin Nyunt has railed 
against them ever since.
	   Despite Khin Nyunt's assurances, investor confidence in the 
Burmese economy seems to be eroding as the currency, the kyat, 
plunged to 202 against the US dollar this week, after trading at 
178 to the dollar recently.
	   Khin Nyunt said that during June his men had apprehended members 
of the National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma, a 
pro-democracy exile group based in the United States, with 
explosive devices and materials including plastic explosives, fuse 
wires and detonators.
	   He said they planned to "carry out bomb attacks on some foreign 
embassies in Rangoon and the residences of Burma's leaders," but he 
did not give the number or names of the individuals arrested and 
offered no evidence to back up his claims.
	   As intelligence chief, Khin Nyunt oversees the extensive network 
of spies and informers that keeps the Burmese people wrapped in a 
web of fear, and he administers the country's vast prison system 
where political prisoners are routinely subjected to torture.
	   He also controls the state-run press which attacks the US and 
democracy activists on a daily basis in a relentless campaign of 
misinformation and propaganda.
	   Khin Nyunt has been accused by chroniclers of the 1988 democracy 
uprising in Burma of releasing hardened criminals from jails during 
the demonstrations to create anarchy and pave the way for the 
military to reassert control.
	   The intelligence chief accused the NCGUB, led by Sein Win, a 
cousin of democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, of sending a 
letter bomb to the home of General Tin Oo, another government 
leader in March. The bomb killed Tin Oo's 33-year-old daughter, but 
the general was unharmed.
	   "Sein Win has been dancing to the strings pulled by his American 
puppet masters," Khin Nyunt said.
	   The NCGUB consists of Burmese who were elected to parliament in 
a 1990 election the military refused to honour because it lost by a 
landslide. Instead, Khin Nyunt's men waged a campaign of arrests 
and assassinations against the elected representatives, forcing 
many of them to flee the country.
	   Most came from Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy, which 
adheres to a policy of nonviolence.
	   Khin Nyunt read out a list of appropriations by the US Congress 
that he claimed showed it was aiding groups "for the purpose of 
launching terrorist attacks and exploding bombs."
	   The groups funded by the United States included the American 
Refugee Committee, International Rescue Committee, the Center for 
International Private Enterprise, the Asian American Free Labour 
Institute and Dr Cynthia's Maesot Clinic, which provides free 
medical care to ethnic Karen refugees in Thailand.
	   AP  ts
	ASIA: US DENIES PLOTTING BURMA ATTACKS
BURMA US DAYLEAD
   WASHINGTON, June 27 Reuter - The US today denounced as 
"outrageous" a Burmese charge that Washington was plotting with 
opposition groups to carry out anti-government attacks.
	   "That charge is obviously outrageous," State Department 
spokesman John Dinger told a regular news briefing.
	   He said Burma's ruling State Law and Order Restoration Council 
(SLORC), in making the claim, might be trying to divert attention 
from its "terrible record of abusing the human rights of its own 
citizens".
	   Earlier today in Rangoon, a SLORC spokesman told a news 
conference that two Americans he alleged were undercover US agents 
had given Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the opposition National League 
for Democracy, $US85,200 ($A113,980) "to stir up unrest to disturb 
the peace".
	   "The United States has suffered very much from terrorist acts, 
both at home and abroad, against its citizens," Dinger said. "We 
are a leader in the international fight against terrorism. And I 
absolutely reject that sort of charge, categorically."
	   REUTER ao