Australia to take a stand on Burma.

[082903@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

			Australia to take a stand on Burma
			**********************************

                        (By LINDSAY MURDOCH,
                        international affairs correspondent,
                        Canberra)

                        The Foreign Minister, Mr Alexander Downer, plans 
			to take his
                        toughest stand yet against Burma's military 
			dictators in a
                        meeting with a senior official of the junta in 
			Kuala Lumpur
                        today.

                        Officials in Canberra said Mr Downer will tell 
			Burma's Foreign
                        Minister, Mr Ohn Gyaw, that the country's 
			admission this
                        week into the regional group, the Association of 
			South-East
                        Asian Nations, carries with it a responsibility 
			to improve its
                        record on human rights and personal freedoms. 

                        Burma and Laos officially joined ASEAN at its 
			annual meeting
                        in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday while Cambodia's 
			entry has
                        been delayed because of this month's coup.

                        Mr Downer will insist at today's meeting that 
			Burma's junta,
                        which is officially called the State Law and 
			Order Restoration
                        Council, include representatives of the National 
			League for
                        Democracy run by the pro-democracy leader Ms Aung San
                        Suu Kyi in a commission set up to prepare a new 
			constitution.

                        Mr Downer's approach has been to be diplomatic and
                        guarded about raising human rights and other 
			contentious
                        issues with Asian countries.

                        But an official said yesterday Mr Downer planned 
			to send "a
                        very clear message to Burma that its behavior on 
			human rights
                        is unacceptable" and would tell Mr Ohn Gyaw that 
			Ms Suu
                        Kyi, whose party won 1991 elections but was not 
			allowed to
                        take office, "must play a central role in 
			discussions about how
                        the constitutional process develops".

                        Mr Downer insisted on seeing Mr Ohn Gyaw ahead of a
                        dinner tonight of representatives of 21 countries 
			attending the
                        ASEAN Regional Forum which was set up three years 
			ago as
                        the central plank of Asia's security architecture.

                        The forum is scheduled to discuss Burma during 
			its one-day
                        meeting on Sunday. Officials say the US Secretary 
			of State,
                        Ms Madeleine Albright, will press ASEAN to play a 
			greater
                        role in Burma.

			(The Age, 26 July 1997)

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